My Service Experience With Larimer Humane Society

My service experiences have spanned a very wide range, both in terms of the type of service and in terms of depth of commitment. One of my most profound service involvements to date was my three years of service with Larimer Humane Society, where I volunteered at least two hours every work, working variously as a dog walker, an adoption liaison, and a front-desk greeter. It was the first service commitment that I looked forward to every week, and I left almost every time feeling better than I did when I came in. Before my work with the Humane Society, the impact of most of my service had been essentially abstract. For instance, it was impossible to tell if my work with Intercultural Community Builders, a nonprofit whose goal was to promote

When I was first elected vice-president in my sophomore year, the club was fading: we had maybe twenty total members, of which ten or fewer regularly showed up to meetings and events. We didn’t have many service projects to offer, and we spent much of the year doing little in between big projects. By the time I graduated, thanks to my efforts and the efforts of others on the leadership team, Service Club had been transformed beyond recognition. Our membership boomed to over thirty active, engaged members, and we started no fewer than six new projects (including a drive to create gift baskets for a local domestic violence shelter, a new recycling program, a program where students learned to sew mittens for donation to local homeless shelters, and a partnership between Larimer Humane Society and Service Club that I orchestrated wherein Service Club members provided manpower for big Humane Society events). Perhaps most importantly, we found passionate sophomore and junior students to take over the leadership roles that would be vacated when we graduated, thereby ensuring Service Club’s newfound vitality would be continued for years to

First and most obviously, there would be the positive impact on the shelter, which would be able to run more smoothly with extra manpower and therefore likely be able to serve more people. The people being served, in turn, get a warm meal and a chance to be part of a Thanksgiving community. There would also be benefits for the students who choose to volunteer. Being alone and away from home for Thanksgiving, especially for the first time, can be an isolating and emotionally difficult situation. This service project would bring together many students who feel that way, eliminating the aloneness of the situation, and would provide a way for the experience to be turned into something positive. In my experience, service is the best way to give yourself a sense of gratitude, and, that, after all, is what Thanksgiving is supposed to be