Personal Narrative: My Experience As A Volunteer At Rehoboth Care Center

By the way of introduction, I am Aleem Punja's cousin and he suggested I reach out to you to explore possible opportunities at the Children's Aid Society of Toronto.

My drive to help others stems from my time volunteering with the service organization, Rotary, and their leadership program, Camp RYLA. When I attended this camp as a high schooler, I learned invaluable lessons of self-confidence and connecting with others, traits seldom found in a high school environment. My experience at this program inspired me to return as a counselor, where I have been helping foster the growth of today’s youth for the past four years.

I completed my internship at Saint Agnes Home, Inc (SAH) located in West Hartford Connecticut. I was assigned to single Teenage Mothers. The Saint Agnes is a non-profit program licensed group home run by the State of Connecticut Department of Children and Families for pregnant and/or parenting adolescents and their babies. The mission of the Saint Agnes program is to provide residential care and support services to single pregnant and parenting teen mothers and their babies. The Saint Agnes Home program emphasis values, respects life, and recognizes the unique dignity and optimum potential of each person served. The program is staffed by licensed clinical social workers, registered nurse, and other college prepares professionals.

My personal experience gives me emotional strength and purpose to serve the vulnerable sections of society through pediatric health care. Growing up in a remote town in

On the last Thursday of every month, a few of the Young Adults from Harvest City Church volunteer to go to Carrall Gospel Mission and serve the homeless at downtown Eastside. These people are made up of drug addicts, ex-convicts, prostitutes and people with mental health problems. First, We have a short sharing session by the leaders of the mission, and afterwards we serve the homeless dinner. The purpose of this mission is not only to engage the impoverished, but also to give back to the community. Listening to the homeless talk about their lives, I have learned to be more content with what I have and not to take anything for granted. Moreover, I have learned that reaching out to others can have a lasting impact on their lives and also on

During my time at the drop-in center I had the opportunity to be the key-note speaker for numerous churches at various youth nights and numerous youth retreats. I was also asked to represent the drop-in center at many of the churches in Winkler by giving a mission update/sermon on many of the church’s Sunday morning services throughout my tenure. In 2011, I was asked to give the message at our community’s annual summer festival where all the churches gather for a joint Sunday morning service (unsolicited, someone so was kind to video tape it and provide me with a copy).

This past summer, I was called to act upon one of the Four Pillars of NHS, service. I joined my church’s Youth Mission Team and spent five days in Athens, Ohio. During this time, my team members and I completed various projects including making a free lunch for the community, shoveling gravel, building a ramp, and working with children.

When I was thirteen years old, I joined National Charity League of Tustin. At the time, I did not really know my place in helping the community, but I did know that I wanted to make a difference in any way possible. The first event I did for NCL was the Ronald McDonald House. That is where volunteers come to cook meals for the seriously ill children who are getting treatment, and their families. While volunteering there, I talked with and befriended some of children at the residence. Their radiant happiness made me reflect on the times when I felt that something bad was happening to me. All the “problems” I thought I had in my life could not compare to the true misfortune of others. It made me realize that if these children can stay happy even

Today was my first day to volunteer at Hamtramck Medical Center. I spent the first forty minutes with Elia. She introduced me to other nurses, also, she showed me everything in Hamtramck Medical Center including, patients’ rooms, lab, waiting rooms, and doctors’ offices. After that, she read me the instructions, one of the instructions is to treat the patients kindly, and everything happens in Hamtramck Medical Center stay there. Lastly, Elia introduced me to my supervisor.

I volunteer at Wagner Pharmacy, which is located in an underserved community. I help to improve patient adherence through medication education and Medication Therapy Management programs. I also perform hypertension screenings and assist the pharmacist in preparing patient assessment forms to furnish hormonal contraceptives, Naloxone and smoking cessation therapies. I will bring my unique pharmacy experiences to UCSD and become an exceptional healthcare provider.

I chose to to my work experience at the McKernan center. I chose to do this because I knew it would be easy to get to, and I already knew some people there. I now work at the McKernan Center. Unlike the other businesses I went and talked to, I was actually looking for a job from the McKernan. After the school accepted me I was no longer considered a liability and chef agreed to let me do my experience and just not be paid for those days. In those two days I worked eight hours and learned a lot. Not just where everything is and what they do as a business, but how to do things I haven't done before in the kitchen.

Today for my service learning project I headed over to Pulaski County to volunteer with the Habitat for Humanity to help build houses. The trip to Pulaski took about forty-five minutes as the I-81 was calm. Upon arriving at the work site, I took it upon myself to get acquainted with the supervisor currently present. Although, I was unable to locate the supervisor immediately, someone working at the site instructed me to fill out a wavier before I could be assigned any duties. After all that was said and done, I was instructed by a fellow volunteer to pick up a tool belt, some nails and a hammer. The first task that was asked of me was to hammer in some nails on the frame of the house. This task was simple as the places where I needed to hammer were clearly marked. The

However, I have come to understand that what we do is seed-planting, recognizing that I won’t always get to see what grows from that seed, but gaining satisfaction in knowing that I planted something good and trust that one day it will take root. Sometimes, though, I do get to see the results. There are a number of teen moms – now young women – who stay in touch with me through The Center. It makes me proud when I talk to a young woman and she tells me how her son is doing in elementary school, and shares that she is working and in college. I recently ran into a former participant downtown while she was on her lunch break. She works in a professional setting and has been stable in her job for several years now. She has obtained and maintained a very nice apartment for herself and her daughter and it makes me smile to see how well she is

I have now completed one full week of my internship at St. Clair Hospital. As of now, I have completed 40 internship site hours. I did a lot of assignments over the past week. I continued to learn to rebuild laptops for hospital use, have switched hard-drives of broken laptops with those that are in good condition, taking voice messages for customer service, and learned to restart a nurse’s scanner. One my of the bigger projects that I did over the week was going through a database to determine which St. Clair computer accounts needed to be disabled. This assignment actually took a couple days to complete since there were hundreds of accounts that I had to go through. A query on the database determines if an account needed to be disabled if

In October, I had the honor to work with a group who values the development of young leaders for job creations, wealth creations, and a shift from the bottom of the pyramid to an active middle class. The organization that I contacted with these values was the Phoenix Empowerment Center (PEC). The Phoenix Empowerment Center is a preparation center that Is in myrtle beach off Mr. Joe White Avenue. This Center (PEC) offers various trainings and services for workforce development, personal development and family counseling; they are active and care about people in Myrtle Beach, especially the youth. The targeting of the youth is the reason why I chose to work with The Phoenix Empowerment Center. This group understand that the youth are the only way to make things around here better and I agree with them. While doing my search for this project, I knew I wanted to work with youth since I coach football for a local middle school and majoring in education; coming across PEC was a perfect opportunity for me to reach my goal of working with kids. On the day I volunteered, a long with Pastor Timothy McCray, we met up with a group of young men who were troubled and/or poverty stricken. Our goal for these teens were to just show them activities they could engage with instead of hanging out in the streets most likely doing things that are not good. Pastor McCray first had a conversation with these young men where he put a lot of emphasis on connecting conduct, character, and