“The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.”
― Lao Tzu
For my service project for this summer I wanted to take something that I have learned and try to implement on the younger generations, especially for the young adolescents who are really transitioning into adulthood. This summer I decided to go help out my fellow community youngster at the community park learn step or stepping.
These kids aren’t really children, they’re in high school some middle but they are what’s next to be released to this world so why not throw in something totally new that they never done before and show them that even I, from the place area that they’re from can also master such talent. I rounded up a fairly large amount of students at the local community park and when I say just the word that Jeffrey is teaching something new is more than enough to even bring out old steppers before my time to witness what I got and what they’re made of.
First we started off with warm-ups and a little stretching then off to this stepping. I really choose stepping as an activities to really show that there are so much more than what West gate in West Palm Beach can offer. I see time and time again a familiar face here and there but what comes with this face is criminal record or hanging out late nights at the park doing God knows what. When I started college and join the step teams up here in Tallahassee many of my friends and those in lower grade levels than me were shocked to how productive and even viewing the actual show on YouTube at least showed them that I was pretty much staying out of trouble and focusing on me and my well-being.
I started off with something real easy and fast to catch up to, Drills. Even with years of practice you still want to keep your drills up and precise, no one wants to be taught by someone who cannot even make it through drills. After that I broke the group into two team, male and female. Something I realized in college is that it’s better to have both gender separated so that you can really put yourself in their shoes only to really create something magnificent. The girls seems to get the concept of the whole stepping I guess cheerleading helped out or something but when it came down to the guys, now that’s a whole essay in itself.
Overall, the kids were able to learn five, yes five really cool steps and at the end of practice the fellows really had the courage to challenge the female group. Both teams preformed hard and both try their best to not mess up or slow each other down, at the end I can just say I was very proud of the teens and their dedication to put effort to something kidlike stepping.
I can’t believe I almost forgot about the old heads who also wanted to challenge not only the guys or girls but they wanted a piece of me too. I’ll let you on a secret, I let them win this so call challenge I wouldn’t want nothing more than for everyone to just have a good time and enjoy one another presence.
This service project really touch me in way that the community really don’t know. I sometimes feel like me being up here in Tallahassee I am leaving behind a war back home, every now and again I hear a new death or someone is heading off to jail. Not saying that I’m Superman or anything but I do feel like me being home and around I do keep people out of trouble. I know I’m the only one from my neighborhood who when I travel down to Palm Beach I check up on everyone just to feed my soul that everything is alright. This service was really a gift from me to my community.
