“The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For my acts of service, I chose to aid the community. More specifically my service was centered towards the veterans who served both long ago and more recently. I first started by helping out the veterans at their residence on a nice orange Thursday night in October by helping to set up their dinner for them. There were other people, fellow students and professors there as well so I can’t take all the credit for it. We were to all bring something for the dinner, and my task was to bring plenty of plates, utensils, and waste bags. Once I got there though, my duties shifted. At first I started helping to set up for food, and then as the night got under way I had the liberty of getting to know the veterans on a first name basis as I took down their names, and learned what they wanted for Christmas. Which will eventually lead to my second act of service.
At first I had signed up to help the veterans out of my own selfish desire to earn extra points on my exam, but that all changed once I got to meet them. I met quite a few veterans that night and I got to learn a little bit about them. Overall, I had fun even though my face might not show it or I won’t act like it. For my educational path, it did enlighten me but not by much. Helping the veterans with serving their dinner and taking down their names gave me an insight as to what most veterans are going through or what they can go through after serving. It’s rather shameful to see how some veterans weren’t being taken care of as well as they should be, but for the bright side, at least they have a place to stay
. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to know the veterans on a personal level and I certainly wish I had. I have no idea what their struggles are like and as someone who has been living with depression for the past four years, I know how tough a struggle can be. To be honest, I would love to go back there and help them more, even if it’s just serving dinner for them. If anything, helping the veterans certainly cemented the thought of helping others whenever I can in my mind. I am no stranger to helping others, or doing service like they have and it brings me pride and joy to see that they’re in good hands. However, there is only so much that I can do and I can honestly say that admire what Dr. Soldani is doing with Mrs. Sheffield, it made me feel good inside. As for my second half of the service project, I adopted a veteran by the name of Waverly, and his Christmas wish was to receive a PlayStation 3 console. It just so happened that I had a PS3 that I no longer used and the opportunity presented itself to make a wish come true. I cleaned my old PS3 of all my data and formatted the hard drive twice and made a new user profile on the system, went out and got 3 games as well as a new controller. I figured it was the least I could do, and now he and a friend can play together and enjoy themselves. That ps3 brought me an enormous amount hours of enjoyment and frustration. I know it’ll get put to good use and I hope that Waverly enjoys his new console at the end of the day. I can honestly say that donating the ps3 to a worthy cause was a great move, it made me feel excellent and warm inside, but it also made me sad as well. It made me sad that to know that this is part of a grade. Despite giving away such a precious commodity being a great decision, and an excellent one at that, knowing this will be a graded assignment slightly dampens the feeling I am actually trying to do something good. At the end of the day, the important thing is whether or not my deeds will catch on. Ultimately, I would love to see more people putting the less fortunate or those in need before themselves. Personally, I don’t like being acknowledged for the deeds and generous things I do, I hate the attention from it and it can give people the wrong idea. I have already helped people out and then they’ve turned around to show their true colors. I would rather have other people notice them silently. Actions speak louder than words and if one action can impact another person and create a chain effect that would be perfect.
As the saying goes “A simple act of caring creates an endless ripple.” I know that not everyone has money, not everyone has material possessions, not everyone has enough food to donate, but we all have two things that we have plenty of and can give every day; caring, and time. Those two things will revolutionize the world, but for impact to be made you have to take the initiative and start your own ripple.
