“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping yourself, the other for helping other”. – Audrey Hepburn. What did I do for my Service Project? For my service project I decided to hand out little bags of food to the homeless. Inside the bags I had a ham and cheese sandwich, chips, and a Gatorade. I originally was only going to hand out the bags for the homeless on Pensacola St near the school because I always drive down that street and I see so many people walking around over there because they just recently build a new shelter over there. But since I had a view bags left over from handing them out on Pensacola St. I gave a few more bags to the homeless guys by my job by the name of Guy and Rusty on Thomasville road. They have actually been living on the side of this gas station next to my job for about 8 years.
Why did I choose to do this for my service project? To be honest I just remember one day I was walking to school, I lived right down the road from TCC so I use to always walk to school and one day I was walking and was eating my bagel on the way to school and this was when they had just built the shelter which was directly across the street from my apartment complex. And one of the homeless men that are always out at that time of the morning asked me if he could have the other half of my bagel. And at first I was in shock like wow did this man really just ask for the other half of my bagel? So of course I gave it to him because I knew I could just buy me something else to eat but this man can’t. it just made me realize all the things that I have and that I can help someone else even if it’s just a bag lunch, it’s something to help them out because they don’t have much. What impact did this service project have on my educational wisdom path? I would have to say it just made me thing about sometimes people just need help. Everyone needs help every now and then but some just need a lot more help than others. And if you can help them than by any means help some people out. Some people just need that extra push to make them get up and help themselves.
In my opinion when it comes to the homeless every one of them have a story to tell you on when they became homeless and how it happened. For example, I had a talk with the homeless man from by my job and he told me it all began when he walked in and found his wife cheating on him. He told me he married young and shortly after catching her they got a divorce. And after the divorce that’s when he became homeless, I also didn’t know he was originally from Alabama. He relocated to Tallahassee to live with a friend and long story short the friend kicked him out and he’s been homeless ever since.
After listening to this man story it made me sad of course but then I think about it and he has been homeless for years and hasn’t tried to do anything about and especially since I have been knowing this man since I started working there and he does the same thing every day, walk up and down Thomasville Rd asks people for money and when he gets the money he buys a case of beer and gets drunk. I asked him myself “why do you get drunk every day?” “why don’t you try to find a job?”. And he told me that’s just not what he wants to do, he just wants to get drunk everyday that’s what he likes. But I think that’s just his way of coping with it so basically alcohol is his drug I guess you can say so. Him getting drunk helps him keep his mind off of being in the situation that he is in.
I am kind of glad I did have a talk with him just because now I know what really happened to him and how he got his self in this situation. I still don’t agree with what he’s doing as of now but hey you can only help a person so much. This was a good project I did learn a lot from it honestly.
