(Student essay Fall 2015)
The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service. Why I did my service project, honestly in the beginning for a grade, I wanted to pass this class with an “A” and this was part of my final grade. Throughout the year I kept on hearing about the class always going to veteran’s village having fun and the veterans had fun too. Then everywhere I went no matter if it was Tallahassee on my way to Walmart, of to a fast food joint, out of town Gainesville, Pensacola, Niceville, or Atlanta I would always see a homeless person everywhere.
I thought to myself that I wouldn’t like to live like that at any point of time in my life and all these homeless people were old or veterans. My initial service project was going to be a large meal that would provide some of these homeless people something warm to eat for once. As much as I wanted to do that I did not have the time and energy to prepare and serve a large meal for them. So instead I just wanted to give back even if I couldn’t give back to to as many people as I wanted I just wanted to give back to at least one person.
So I decide to by some essentials such as water for hydration, Gatorade for electrolytes, and snacks that were easy around to carry around with no trouble. After doing so I felt good on the inside because I’m not the type of person to give away anything for free. This experience has taught me you should give back because you never know how life will treat you and wish that someone else would do the same to you what you did for another. I also learned that there is more blessings in giving and receiving.
The joy one gets from helping the needy is unexplainable and the act of giving can be fulfilling. I must say that doing this service project has made me have a broader perspective in life in terms of the importance of nurturing social responsibility. We often see social responsibility in our daily lives such as businesses and companies asking for donations from people as well as initiating service projects themselves. This shows that we need to be each other’s keeper and bring each other up and keep making this world a better place for everyone to live.
