Personal Narrative: A Career As An NCL Member

I have many experiences with community service since I am very passionate about helping people and the less unfortunate. I have volunteered in many activities to help my community, for example, Eagle Scream Fest, Dia del Nino, Closet to Closet, Multicultural night and the best one Food for Families. Food for Families is a non-profit organization that distributes free food twice a month. I have been involved with this organization since the beginning which has been two years. I love volunteering with the organization because I am able to see the difference that is making to

Ever since I can remember, I have had the intense desire to help people. In high school, I joined Kiwanis Key Club and National Honors Society; both organizations allowed me to gain hours of volunteer experience helping families in need within my own community. Both organizations have annual events to benefit our community. At Christmas, Key Club adopts a few families and we buy clothing and toys for the kids. Our efforts to make the holidays a more enjoyable time for the families removed the parents’ burden of having to worry about being able to pay bills after getting presents for their children. Also, National Honors Society holds a blood drive every year in coalition with the American Red Cross. Last year our blood drive was in honor of a little girl in our community with leukemia.

In Youth Core we spend a lot of time cooking meals for those staying at the Ronald McDonald house, which is a place for families to stay who have children at Children’s Mercy Hospital under long term care. These families always walk in with their faces down and bags weighing heavily under their eyes and when they walk in and see that a large dinner is already being served, a smile can be seen stretching across their face. For them to be able to come back to the house and not having to worry about dinner during such a stressful time really helps them. After dinner they always come up and make sure to thanks us for what we've done. Through Youth Core I have also helped with the many city events such as Breakfast with Santa, the Daddy-Daughter Dance, The Princess Party, City Garage Sale, and a Fishing Derby. These events have led to me getting to know many community members and getting to know a lot of people around the city, as well as building connections and feeling like I truly am helping my community. I know these events have helped children enjoy their time as youth. My favorite experience was helping a little girl make a craft that said “baby girl’s first Christmas” due to her mom being pregnant, and once she went back to her mom, her mom looked at me with a genuine smile and said thank you. Seeing other people happy truly makes me happy, even if it’s just over the smallest things. I’m there to help those who are making memories and knowing this has made me a happier

Austin’s kindness and selflessness towards Chris has inspired me to help children in my community. In 2014, I contacted Make-A-Wish in Fresno, California to get involved. I organized a service project in conjunction with Make-A-Wish where fifteen of my peers from high school and I participated in a “send-off” of a Wish Kid to Disneyland. My peers and I made posters

This past summer, I acquired an internship at Baldwin and Lyons, an insurance company in Indianapolis. Every Wednesday during my internship, a couple of employees and I would participate in a prodigious community service project, Meals on Wheels. Throughout the three months that I worked at Baldwin and Lyons, I got acquainted with some of the individuals whom we delivered to. These inspiring individuals were so grateful and appreciative that we took time out of our day to volunteer to do such a service. One elderly woman who we delivered to would sing to us as she came to the front door “good meals, good meals, good meals.” She is one woman that I will never forget. First going into this, I was elated knowing I was I getting out of the

The National Honor Society is for high school seniors who have “demonstrated excellence in the areas of scholarship, leadership, service, and character”. At John Marshall we really push the “service” area. There are so many different reason I wanted to be a part of NHS; It gives me satisfaction that I was able to become a member of such an elite society, it also is very rewarding to give back to a community that has done so much for me. Each service project I have volunteered at has taught me something different. Since July, I have volunteered at eleven different projects (over 32 hours), and I have learned something new every time. When I volunteered at the Marshall County Family Resource Network’s gift packaging for teenagers at Cameron High and Middle, Moundsville Middle, Sherrard Middle and John Marshall High Schools, I didn’t realize there were so many of my peers in need of simple hygiene products. It inspired me to help and give back to them by donating to Paws for a Cause at John

Feed my starving children does some amazing and thoughtful things. They send food out to many kids all around the world, like Guatemala, north Korea (yes they actually give food to the north Koreans), etc. They are very thoughtful because they even have special food for little kids that are too little to fully digest the rice. They are also very thoughtful because their goal is to run themselves out of business, which I don’t think will happen in a while, but it is an amazing

I’ve dedicated Tuesdays and Fridays to mentoring 9th-graders about making their high school experience easier. My brother’s compassion leads me to mentor another class of special needs students. My passion for giving back to the less fortunate has led me to be a spokeswoman for the "Promise of Gwinnett" campaign and to speak in front of the GA Board of Education about my experiences with education. I made connections and strengthened my relationships with the underappreciated cafeteria staff and custodians through the Chick-Fil-A Leader Academy (CLA) as we threw them a celebration for their service. Every day I’ve been selling candy for CLA to raise money for a scholarship for those in need of financial aid. But my biggest success that triumphs in my heart is my dedication to Holiday

Last May, I traveled with Alternative Breaks to New York for community service. During this service, I worked with Meals on Wheels who dedicate their time to provide food for the elderly of Manhattan. As I delivered the food to the seniors, I got a sense of fulfillment because I made them smile by providing them with food. Thus, I chose MDC’s Single Stop because I wanted to make a difference in my home campus by providing and assuring nourishment to those that do not have it just like I did in New York. As my first two years of college comes to an end, I wanted to leave a mark of my own here at home at Miami Dade College North Campus. During the month of September, I decided to partner up with a few of my peers to serve at MDC’s Single Stop.

With the changes to the working from home policy, and with our shortage of NLA members, I wanted to revisit working from home this upcoming week.

Throughout my high school years, I have been apart of the Interact Club run by Rotary International. Several volunteer opportunities transpired from this experience, but I discovered a newfound interest in one of the encounters. Volunteering at the local Richmond Bethel Church for the organization Food4life, I was ecstatic once I began serving food, not only were there many familiar faces that came weekly, but there were much more that were in need of these charitable acts than I had anticipated. Having lived in Richmond my whole life, I was truly oblivious to the reality of poverty within it. Joining Interact Club was truly both uplifting and humbling and was a stark reminder of how vulnerable we all are to circumstances that can affect our

Throughout my research on MIFA I have learned just how much of an impact the organization has had in combating the hunger in Memphis. MIFA is a pillar of our community both from the work it does to serve senior and families in crisis, and by brining our community together in the vision of a better Memphis. Those who give to and through MIFA care little about being recognized for donations, but receive satisfaction from knowing their service helps those who desperately need it. Their work has inspired me to sacrifice some of my weekends to help volunteer in the near future so I can do my

During this semester's service learning project, I chose to serve at a community organization called Church On Wheels, Breaking Bread Soup Kitchen. Every night Monday through Friday Breaking Bread opens its doors to the community and provides a meal at no cost. Their mission statement is simple: To carry the gospel of the Lord through feeding the hungry and helping those in need. With this Christ-like love to His people, every night employees and volunteers come together to provide a meal that does not only feed them physically but nourishes the soul of everyone that enters the doors. Within the city of Midland, Texas you will find a diverse culture and community. Due to the recent oil boom, many families found themselves struggling to put a meal on the table. Breaking Bread saw the need in the community to open the doors every night to see that no one would go hungry in our town. With a commitment to see that the poor and needy are served with the love of Christ. On any given night you can expect to find

It gave me the chance to vanquish my fears while also realizing that it is God’s plan for me to help out my community. However, I am not surprised that there are still unanswered questions in my head such as: Why is there such a big hunger problem? Why is this problem not spoken about more often? Is there any other way I can help stop this problem? This service has made me more knowledgeable and aware of my community. In addition, this service project has made me take matters into my own hands. Currently, every time my family goes grocery shopping I make sure they get at least five canned goods for donating. As more of my friends volunteer and more donations come in I think we can end this fight for hunger in southern Louisiana. In addition, I believe that we should all take a step back and be thankful for all that we have because some people don’t have such luxuries. God is omnipresent, He would not want to see His children starving. Finally, I see it as a mission that we volunteers get more people involved to volunteer for the greater

The past few weeks I was able to be a part of an organization every Sunday called “Don’t forget Ontario.” Going into depth about this organization, this was an organization where my family and I got to feed the homeless. This organization has been around for 3 years now so it is fairly new. Anyone can be a part of this group, so all you have to do is contact the main person and tell them you’re interested. The best thing about this organization is that it was every Sunday after church and not just on holidays. My Nina stated something that hit my heart and that was, “Feeding the homeless is an easy task for the hands. It’s a tougher task for the heart. Yes, that’s a little cliché, but once you do one outside of the holiday season, you’ll understand.”