Service Project Proposals and Final Essays from the last Bunch of Years

http://www.melissalaughing.com/search?q=service

Sample ID answers to help you prepare for Exam #1

PROBLEM??? WORDING IS DIRECTLY FROM LECTURE, WHICH RAISES A FLAG ON EXAMS

Service Project Intro Today*

Spring Fling at Veterans Village with sign up link*

Last December TCC students showered the residents at Veterans Village with gifts. It is time to do more! Join us? 

We are hoping to collect 50 of each for distribution at the April 20th dinner at Veterans Village. 

Hopefully we will have enough that each of the 60 Veterans we are sponsoring can choose 3 or 4 gifts from the 5 listed below!

1) Set of new Bed sheets (size Full)

2) 2 Large bath towels

3) Slippers and Robes or PJs

4) Giftcards $10-$20 to Walmart, Publix and fast food 

5) Reusable bag filled with cleaning products

Sign up --> http://www.signupgenius.com/go/508094ba5a72e5-spring

Donations can be brought to my office  HSS204 or left with departmental staff at TCC. 

;-)  Email ---> soldanim@tcc.fl.edu

Samuel's Report

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

            For my service project I cooked sausage and bacon for a dinner at the Veterans Village. I made sure I got the good stuff too, I bought thick cut Applewood bacon and Jimmy Dean sausage links AND patties.  I made that because for me breakfast meat is a delicious comfort food. If I were going to cook for veterans who appreciate and look forward to a home cooked meal, I should make something they would truly enjoy, and who doesn’t like bacon?

            The impact it had on me and my educational path was that it showed me how much one person can appreciate home cooked food from a total stranger, and how a stranger is willing to open up to you about their life just for showing up to help them and asking for nothing in return. It also showed me how privileged I am to be where I am as a student and to take advantage of the path I take to my future. Within the first couple moments of being at the Veterans Village, an older man with the white corn rows (I think you referred to him as Snoop Dog? Lol) started talking to me. Before we could even exchange name, he thanked me.  He thanked me just for being there and participating. Even though it was for a grade I couldn’t help but feel warm inside as he thanked me just for being at the Veterans Village and helping out at one of the dinners. I was so taken off guard by how honest, open, and straight forward he was about himself, his life choices and what I planned to do with my future. As a teenager and a college student I’ve been so used to people building an emotional wall that it can take forever to break through to get close to someone. He instantly got to the point with me. It was clear that from his own personal experiences that he didn’t have time to play small talk, he told me his story of being in Korea and how he talks to his nephew and how proud he is of him in school. He made me realize that I’m doing much more than getting a degree for myself by going to school, I am doing it for the people around me. The people who care about me the most want to watch me succeed as much, if not more than I do.

            I think that this also impacted the men and women at the Veterans Village as well. I believe that when a group of 18 to 20-something year old college students come every week with home cooked food, it gives them hope that a younger generation of people will be more compassionate and giving than they could have imagined, making them happy to see young faces every week that are nice and have their whole life ahead of them. From what I saw, it really could brighten some of their days.

Hopefully the students that were also serving with me felt the same as me or similar. Most of the students I volunteered with weren’t in my class, so it seemed a little difficult to break the ice right of the bat when none of us knew each other. In the long run, I hope the students with me felt as good about is as I did, that they all felt the gratitude from everyone at the Veterans Village.

Overall, my lesson from doing this service project was that I should appreciate every little thing I’ve been given in life. And to give those little things back to others, can really make a difference. It also showed me that giving back to others doesn’t take much from you. All it takes is one afternoon out of your day just to make an effort to volunteer and makes dozens of people smile.

             

Jarrod's Report

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

-Helen Keller

            Being a manager for a McDonalds is a rough place. Whenever the homeless come in and ask for things I would usually try to help them out and give them food. I learned my lesson not to do that ever. For some reason if you ever help homeless people out, they will always return wanting more, or they will screw you over in some way, at least that’s what my experience has been when I go out of the way to help people in general. For months, sometimes I would base the quote “No good deed goes unpunished” on my life because every time I would try to go out of my way to help someone for good, I would always get screwed over somehow. This stopped me from going out of my way to help people for a long time. When I found out that we had to do a service project for my history class I was skeptical to help at first. I realized that it was a mandatory to do for the class. I started to think less selfishly about myself and said to myself, no matter what happens you are helping people or at least making an effort to do so. This was my chance to break my negative selfish cycle of not helping people. So, I went to thinking what would I make for my service project. For my service project, I decided to bake chocolate chip cookies for the veterans. I probably baked about 150 of those tasty things in total. Ever since I was a kid I always knew that Nestle’s chocolate chip cookies could cure any bad day. That’s why I chose them to help feed the veterans at Veterans Village. For some reason, I knew that this was going to be different than any other good deed I have done for others.  I have always had the utmost respect for veterans or military personnel. I think that’s what made me have faith that I was doing something really good for people less fortunate, because they served the country and risked their lives for us. I think that helping serve the veterans with food touched my heart in a good way, I haven’t felt that in a long time. There is something about going to help someone that is less fortunate than you are that just gives you a good feeling inside that makes all life problems not seem that bad, especially when people really appreciate you going out of your way to do good things.  I wanted to take the time out to feed the veterans because it’s something that I don’t usually do because of my bad past experiences. I learned from this that I have to take and look at each experience differently, and not to judge past experiences on future giving opportunities, That I should know in my heart that I am trying to do good giving to give no matter the consequence of what could happen. This has led me to a higher place in my own wisdom with things. I think it relates to the quote at the beginning of the essay. We all have kindness to give, we have to find it within ourselves not to look for it elsewhere. I think as a society we need to be more giving to those that have sacrificed so much for us, we need to swallow our pride and give to our neighbors in need. I think the Veterans enjoyed every last one of those chocolate chip cookies. I hope it took them back to good memories in their past of enjoying cookies and the good things that happen in life. I know I had a positive impact on them I hope we as a group feeding them helped them think more positively on the world and have faith that there are good people in the world that are willing to give to the needy.

Broderick's Report

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandi. I demonstrated this quote during the service project with the veterans for Thanksgiving. It was an eye wakening experience.

 For my service project I spent part of my Thanksgiving with the veterans. This day began by students bringing in a dish for the veterans. I did my part by bringing in ham. I was originally supposed to bring in turkey, but due to my mother not wanting to help me cook the ham, I had to settle for ham. I figured, why not do ham, nobody else is bringing it and you can’t have thanksgiving dinner without ham, you just can’t do that. So I brought ham and everyone loved it, they were referring to me as “the ham guy.” Just being around that environment made me upset and thankful at the same time. It made me upset because since 9^th grade I would have people come talk at my high school all of the time about joining the military and how good it is and so forth. When I see these people that some have slight mental disabilities from being in the environment that they were in and risk so much for our country and once they have done their justice, they come back home to this… Seeing them like that made me think, why are the people that are protecting us, giving the chance for America to be America living like this under these conditions? I believe they should be one of the most protected and cared for people in our nation. It also made me feel thankful because I see what others are going through. Knowing how much better my situations are, it makes me appreciate the stuff I have and not ever take it for granted.

The impact this experience had on my educational wisdom path was that it is bigger than me, so I have to continue to push myself and work hard inside school. There is people that actually care about how you are doing, even people that don’t know you and they are on your side. So that I don’t let them nor myself down, I have to continue to stay on track with my school work. It felt good talking to the veterans and telling them about myself. It really started a good conversation that lasted the entire time I was there. I remember one guy enlightened me about engineering (my major) and told me things that I now take into consideration. I and he went off on why I chose engineering and it led to talking about cars and speakers. Luckily, he was a fan of car audio also, and I was able to teach him a few things I knew about car audio.

I think our giving showed them that there are people out there that have a good heart and appreciate what was done for America. Without us, who knows if those good people would even had a thanksgiving meal? I think it had a mental and physical impact on these people. The physical was that they had so much food that it would take them until Christmas to lose all the food. The mental was that people care. Like how some people did not even get a chance to go home and spend time with their family only to come and celebrate the holiday around veterans.

I did not worry about taking pictures at the veteran’s home because pictures come and go, you can lose them easily. The mental picture and memories I built while there, I will always remember and cherish; cherish how I made an impact on somebody’s life and made someone’s holiday a good one and one to remember.