Community Service Hours

So I've had my hours done for a while, but I keep forgetting to blog about them. Here goes:

On April 30, Val and I went to my aunt's church to work in the food pantry. I chose this opportunity because my Aunt Susy's church has thousands of members, and is an extremely large organization. Because of this, there were several service opportunities to choose from. I chose the food pantry for a couple of reasons, the first being that it is a relatively new part of their church and they needed some help getting it started. Another reason that I chose this church was the fact that it is so large; because it's so big and has so many members, this church is extremely effective and really makes a difference in people's lives. I really like the things they do, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to get involved in. We got about 7 hours in, from 8 A.M. to 3 P.M. We showed up and they talked to us a little about what our responsibilities would be. Basically, people would be coming in all day and shopping for food. It was our job to sort some of the food and make sure everything was in it's proper place so it was accessible and easy to find. It was a really rewarding experience and I definitely would do it again. As I mentioned in my paper, it was also a learning experience. I had several stereotypes going in, and some were proven wrong. I expected most of the people shopping in the food pantry to be minorities, because typically more people in poverty belong to a minority group. While there was a large portion belonging to a minority, some of the people shopping in the food pantry looked completely "normal". Some of the families looked just like my own: white, middle-class, and all-around average. Had I ran into one of these people on the street, I never would've guessed that they had difficulties acquiring something as basic as food. It was also shocking to me how many people came in! I had this idea in my head that because I live in a nice suburb, that there are very few people in poverty. I discovered that poverty in the suburbs is not like poverty in the cities, which is much more visible. Walking down the streets of Chicago, you see homeless people everywhere asking for money. You rarely see that type of thing where I live. I realized that just because the poverty isn't conspicuous, doesn't mean it's not there. I live a fortunate life, and I've been oblivious to the hardships of people around me. These service hours really opened my eyes to the fact that even though somebody might seem "normal" on the outside, they could be struggling with really difficult problems, and you can't tell what's going on in somebody's life just by looking at them. I know it's cliché, but there can be much more than meets the eye. I'm really happy I chose to go to this organization though. The program was really great; because there are so many thousands of members at the church, there were mass amounts of food donations. It was really cool to see a project of those proportions in action. I'm glad I got to partake in such an effort.


I completed the rest of my service hours at my own church. Every year we have a flower drive, where members of our church purchase flowers and the proceeds go to fundraisers for our youth group and also for projects around the community. On May 7, I worked from about 1 to 4 while people came to pick up their flowers and I helped load up their cars and organize their orders. Some of the elderly people in our congregation aren't able to come pick up the flowers, so I went with a couple other people to drive around and drop off the flowers at their houses. It was a cool experience, because not only was the money going to a good cause, but I was able to talk to people that I hadn't previously interacted with. I usually stay within my own little friend group at church, and this opportunity forced me to get out and talk with the older members. I think it's really important, because although it was a little intimidating showing up at random people's doors and making conversation with them, I found that a lot of them were really social and happy to talk. The drop-offs took much longer than I expected, because we often stayed and talked with the people at their houses. I really enjoyed this because I was able to reach out within my own church community and connect with people that I wouldn't normally talk to. This relates to being sociologically mindful of our community as a whole; it's important to see all different pieces and how they connect, rather than focus on one individual group. Once you're able to see and relate to all of the different components of the community, the community functions better as whole. I had a lot of fun catching up with these people; I was kind of embarrassed that we had been going to the same church for several years, but we had never talked or anything. I feel a lot better now that I can connect with more aspects of my community, because I feel less secluded and more involved with the entire community as a whole.