From the moment I learned of the service learning assignment I knew what I wanted to do. I had always wanted to work and volunteer in a soup kitchen. I have spent much of my adult life working in a kitchen, but I have never used that skill to help the community. The service learning project forced me to stop making excuses. I greatly appreciate the assignment and learned so much from it. I was amazed by the results of having the motivation to get out there and give back. I accomplished not only my goal of working in a soup kitchen, but so much more in other opportunities. On my way to completing my fifteen hours of service learning I worked at the Big Kitchen soup kitchen, making the no-sew blankets with the DeRiche Center, and the Trick or Treat Village at Earl Duncan Park. Big Kitchen fulfilled two needs I had for my service learning. It was close to where I live, so I was serving my community. It also was the perfect match for my desire to work in a soup kitchen, and allowed me to put my love of cooking to good use. However, during my time there I discovered that I enjoyed the serving more. That’s the point where you can see the hard work pay off. The smiles and thanks I received filled me with tremendous joy and left a smile on my face for several days. We served ham, corn, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and dessert and everyone ate until …show more content…
When I read the instructions I missed the fact that we would be working with the DeRiche and not for them. I believed that we would just be making these blankets. I am extremely thankful that was not the case. Everyone that came from the DeRiche was amazing and they had great attitudes. I was surprised at the other volunteers, everyone was genuinely happy to be there. You could really see it in their attitudes, support, and compassionate behavior. I had a great time before the DeRiche center arrived, and a better time once they
Selecting to do my service learning at Harvest Hope Food Bank was a very impactful experience. This was so, because of the fact that I have never volunteered at a food bank until now. The organization was able to connect me with the required skills I will practice throughout my career as a professional social worker, therefore better preparing me for assisting clients who may be dependent on my services.
My favorite service project was my silver award for girl scouts. Before Jamie Lince, Faith Brown, and I did the silver award the hoophouse by the elementary school was very rundown. There were holes in the plastic, weeds in the beds, and the wood chips in the aisles were worn down. The hoophouse couldn’t be used. We wanted to fix that problem. First we applied for grants. I never knew how many steps or how much time this would take. It really taught me how to handle deadlines so things get turned in on time. It also taught me that there are people that want to support you, and you just need to find them. The two grants that we received were a Lowes grant for fifteen-hundred dollars and a seed grant from Van Atta’s. The second step was to get people to help weed out the beds so we could plant the seeds we got from the grant. This took a few hours and a lot of people from the community showed up to help. The Lowes grant was used for the plastic that goes on the outside of the hoophouse and new wood chips for the aisles in the hoophouse. We had to have the help of Mr. Montry who makes hoop house...
I chose to do my service learning project at Feed My Starving Children. I chose this service learning project because I had prior knowledge and experience by doing it with my family and church. Feed My Starving Children has been a huge impact to those who have participated in this service experience because their mission is to pack meals that go to very hungry children around the world. Being from a single parent family, it is hard for us to not be concerned about where the money for food is coming from, yet we have food on our tables for everyday meals. Therefore, I can’t imagine what it is like for those who experience hunger.
Being in a school that brought students from various counties and cities with different backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives, opened my eyes to seeing just how diverse humanity is. In a time when everyone is struggling with personal problems, I know how monumental a simple volunteer act can be. One of my favorite acts of service is tutoring. I tutored an elementary-aged girl for two years in Fort Lee and I will always remember those two years as the most fulfilling. Education is so precious, and children are the most open to it.
There were quite many relations made between my service learning experiences and themes addressed in the course. Some of the connections were about human self-respect, unity, and fairness. The social ties hold people together and can support the people who do not have the power to help each other. It was interesting for me to employ my skills and knowledge I learned in the classroom to serve those who need help.
On an average night in our community, there are around 9,500 individuals and families without a place to stay, according to the State Research Group on Homelessness and Poverty (2009). Because of this fact, there is a desperate need for shelter and volunteers to serve at these shelters. There are only 1,995 emergency beds, which is not enough to accommodate all of the homeless, and there is an even smaller number of workers willing to volunteer. The Homeless Center offers beds and meals to the homeless, working poor, and unemployed. There is a need to do service learning at this location because volunteers are needed to serve as greeters, serve meals, conduct daily prayer time, lead worship, work with the Big "A" Club, fellowship with the attendees, prepare the newsletter, help with maintenance and repair projects, organize clothing rooms, and help with many other tasks The purpose of this study was to serve the people of downtown and lighten the load of work for the staff of the Homeless Center. This paper will address the purpose, research questions, literature review, findings, discussion, and implication of my service-learning project at the Hope Center.
provide service to disadvantaged groups or public areas. While community service has numerous benefits, it only focuses on unidimensional service and caters to a current need setting nothing in place to implement substantial change in the future. In contrast, service learning focuses on reciprocity and sets a foundation to create changes in communities. Service learning is defined as an organized collaborative process that requires individuals to actively participate in service projects. Community service is often viewed as volunteerism rather than service learning. Individuals often times tend to establish barriers between the provider and the person receiving help and never focusing on gaining anything from the group or person being assisted.
What connections do you make between your service-learning experiences and some of the themes addressed in class (justice, love, rights, responsibility, relationships, etc.)?
I volunteered at the Activity Center for my Service Learning project. My duties were to watch the kids who participated in the after school program, play with them and help them with their home homework. I really enjoyed interacting with the African-American people and culture. I learned many things from the African-American population I worked with. I learned how the Activity Center staff teaches the after school kids good manners and behavior. I mentioned in one of my service learning journals that the staff was very strict and treated the kids like prisoners, but I came to the realization that maybe that is how they teach the kids discipline. I had the opportunity to be around all the Activity Center kids and interact with them. They were kids just like any other kids. Of course they are kids and sometimes they did misbehave but overall they were really great kids. I noticed that most of the boys want to be more independent of them, but they were such sweet kids.
A service learning experience is designed to enhance a student 's growth in personal and social development and to obtain an understanding of community involvement. For my service learning experience, I volunteered at Change Point Center. In this reflection paper, I will discuss in depth information about the services that Change Point provides, my goals while I was there,and what I ultimately learned from this experience.
The Importance of Community Service Service projects are important for many reasons that come with positive benefits. By completing community service, it allows to help those in need as well as further develop personal benefits. There are many individuals, just in our community alone, that need help with the basic functions of life. It is important to give back to our community to help those who are less fortunate than ourselves. During the service learning project, it opens your eyes to situations other live through on a daily basis.
For my service learning, I chose to volunteer my services to the Tulsa Day Center—Homeless Shelter. Prior to this experience, I had my own perception of the homeless community. As many Americans do, I perceived them as lazy, unsanitary, illiterate individuals who wanted everything handed to them. However, I quickly realized this was not the case. Growing up, I would encounter many homeless people, whether riding the bus or walking down the street. I would also see them sitting outside of stores waiting for patrons to ask for money.
How did a departmental faculty generated 12,000 hours of student community service in one semester? The following is a qualitative analysis of conversations with faculty members in a department that recently instituted a service learning requirement for all student majors. The campus is a large urban comprehensive university with a multi-ethnic student body. Approximately fifteen faculty members were interviewed for this study. While most of those interviewed included service learning components in their courses, interviews with faculty members who resisted or refused to incorporate service learning were conducted as well in order to understand varying faculty attitudes towards service learning.
For my service learning project I dedicated one hour to selling tickets for the benefited pulled pork dinner with our Cowley Activity Awareness Team (CAAT), and did the rest of my hours by serving at the lunch/dinner. The pulled pork dinner was hosted by ACES, another club at Cowley, and it all the money that was raised went towards a food packaging event in November. My duties in this were to fill up cups with water/tea, serve food, and send out prepared meals to cars. I chose to do this as my service learning project because I wanted to be face to face with the people that were helping us make a difference, and to gain experience with serving.
Despite many obstacles in my life, my experience performing community service stands out as the most memorable. I was sixteen at the time, and just beginning my first job at a fast food restaurant. I had to learn how to balance between community service in the morning and my employment at the local Wendy’s. It was very stressful and influential at the same time.