Student Service Project Report Summer 2016
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service to others!” (Mahatma Gandhi) In other words, it is always good to help someone in need, rather than being the one always on the receiving end. A sevice project is meant for an individual to take some of their personal quality time and use it wisely by giving back to the community in some form to help the needy. Some people do not mind dedicating some of their time cooking, cleaning, building, organizing, or simply reading to someone unfortunate to lift their spirits with a caring hand. I chose to do my service project by volunteering at a homeless shelter, because it was educational to work directly with the homeless community about poverty and it has left me with an everlasting positive role helping the community.
Volunteering at the homeless shelter, really educated me on poverty and life circumstances by interacting with homeless individuals and families. At the shelter, a lot of homeless people talked to me all the time about how they got in that type of situation. The loss of jobs has been the topic in most cases. People either could not survive off of low wages or job scarcity in the area. However, I’ve learned through numerous stories that economic problems were not the main factor that lead to homelessness. Depression was the largest contributor to homelessness. Some people had problems coping with the lost of their job, due to long dedicated years working with various companies. The transition of starting all over left them in a bad state of depression, because bills were piling up. Although I met numerous of homeless
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service to others!” (Mahatma Gandhi) In other words, it is always good to help someone in need, rather than being the one always on the receiving end. A sevice project is meant for an individual to take some of their personal quality time and use it wisely by giving back to the community in some form to help the needy. Some people do not mind dedicating some of their time cooking, cleaning, building, organizing, or simply reading to someone unfortunate to lift their spirits with a caring hand. I chose to do my service project by volunteering at a homeless shelter, because it was educational to work directly with the homeless community about poverty and it has left me with an everlasting positive role helping the community.
Volunteering at the homeless shelter, really educated me on poverty and life circumstances by interacting with homeless individuals and families. At the shelter, a lot of homeless people talked to me all the time about how they got in that type of situation. The loss of jobs has been the topic in most cases. People either could not survive off of low wages or job scarcity in the area. However, I’ve learned through numerous stories that economic problems were not the main factor that lead to homelessness. Depression was the largest contributor to homelessness. Some people had problems coping with the lost of their job, due to long dedicated years working with various companies. The transition of starting all over left them in a bad state of depression, because bills were piling up. Although I met numerous of homeless
people entering the shelter for help daily, indeed, there were plenty of them that are very intelligent, had good trades, and college degrees, but allowed depression to help influence bad business decisions. Furthermore, their skills and background history were so impressive, whereas job seeking would not be a hard match to follow. Consequently, depression made a lot of them give up on their dreams and they lost ambition towards maintain their social status. Some of them said that deaths in their family made them give up on life. Once grief began, Drugs and alcohol abuse mixed with the aid of depression made matters worse. As a result, bills were not being paid and led to homelessness. Believe it or not, I ran into a vast amount of people there that taught me methods of budgeting time and money. Also, they gave me great advice on study habits that works. Even though homeless people educated me on areas about being homeless, more or less, I came to terms that the shoe could be on the other feet one day, and if so, would the future society have a heart to help me.
Nobody wants to ever visualize if they were homeless and in need. Going to the shelter and actually seeing the appreciation of doing something small can really be a big deal to the unfortunate. It did not matter if I served food, or hand someone a warm blanket, my blessing came from doing something positive from the heart what counts. I enjoyed that! Everyday homelessness is hitting America hard. Restaurants and hospitals throw away tons of items that shelters could use. Every time I see that, I think about the days when I worked with the homeless. I remembered the sight of seeing single parents trying to feed and clothed their children at the shelter. Telling their babies it’s going to be alright. Some of them hate to look up at you during dinner, because they feel ashamed. Tragedy can strike anyone at any given time. Society should educate the public more on homelessness. If we all pull together, America can become great again. I am my brothers’ keeper.
Nobody wants to ever visualize if they were homeless and in need. Going to the shelter and actually seeing the appreciation of doing something small can really be a big deal to the unfortunate. It did not matter if I served food, or hand someone a warm blanket, my blessing came from doing something positive from the heart what counts. I enjoyed that! Everyday homelessness is hitting America hard. Restaurants and hospitals throw away tons of items that shelters could use. Every time I see that, I think about the days when I worked with the homeless. I remembered the sight of seeing single parents trying to feed and clothed their children at the shelter. Telling their babies it’s going to be alright. Some of them hate to look up at you during dinner, because they feel ashamed. Tragedy can strike anyone at any given time. Society should educate the public more on homelessness. If we all pull together, America can become great again. I am my brothers’ keeper.
