Personal Narrative: Senator Hart

During the break the volunteers asked us several questions. From what I gathered all of the volunteers also need the assistance of the pantry. Many asked us how they could help us, assuming we had fallen on hard times. I assured them they we were just there to help them and donate our time. Volunteers receive each goods in their boxes in return for their help.

The facility that I am placed at for my field practicum is called Mary’s Outreach Center. Mary’s Outreach Center is located in Rochester, New York and has only been in business for six years. Initially this program only passed out clothes to about a dozen refugees. The refugees who received clothing from Mary Outreach Center started to tell others about the clothes that they were receiving, which brought dozens of other refugees. After about one year of being housed in a small room, Mary’s Place moved into a historical Catholic Church built in 1917, because they started to have too many people and not enough room to service them. The church was gutted out on the inside, besides a select few

Serving others is a down deep way of learning more about yourself and helping others to see past themselves. Our Business and Professional Communication class participated in several service projects, which were interesting and exciting to be involved with helping others. As I am studying the major courses of Early Childhood/Special Education, our group project with the “Big Brothers Big Sister” program was very memorable to me. It was wonderful to have fun and participate in various activities with the kids. The environment was caring due to everyone helping each other accomplish different tasks. It was a great feeling to be able to share our time, talents, and hearts with the kids.

Every Wednesday and Friday, I served with the Last Call 4 Grace ministry. I helped provide meals for people who barely have a roof over their heads. First, the other volunteers and I formed an assembly line. Then, we packed food in to go boxes. On Wednesday of the first week, we packed pizza and brownies. On Friday, we packed hot dogs, potato chips, and cookies. During the following week, we packed burritos for the first day and rice with broccoli for the second. In addition to the main meal, we also provided bread, Halloween candy, and other sweets.

The shelter was at capacity within 45 min that night and there was at least 20-30 people who didn’t make it in, who would be sleeping outside on the sidewalk or grassy area; so after dinner was served, Michael and I, and one of the police officers went outside and handed out sandwiches and hot coffee to the people who were turned away. This was the breaking point for me. It broke my heart to hear these people who were going to sleep outside say, “god bless you” or tell me they were going to pray for me.

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 first day on the job was terrifying! The vocalized mandate of perfection was intimidating. Compound the expectation of perfection with 100 elected officials seated on the Senate floor, and CSPAN providing continual coverage for the nation to view, I imagined this to be a mistake-filled summer. Serving as a United States Senate Page seemed as though it would be an impossible task. I received my orientation, as I was ushered throughout the Capitol building’s halls, I learned where amendments would be taken, bills dropped off, and roll call sheets delivered, the necessary locations quickly became a blur. I was just as lost as an explorer without a map.

I was a member of a local Medford Girl Scouts troop which achieved a lot of wonderful deeds for the Medford community. An example of our exceptional deeds was a project we did. We had to think of one way to improve Medford; my group researched overpopulation of water chestnuts in the Mystic River. We found out there was a water chestnut pull happening soon so we helped advertise it. We improved the Mystic River by making it much cleaner and clearer.

I have been involved with several service activities throughout my life. Some of the more recent services that I have participated in include: Helping set up and helping teach underprivileged children at the Children's Defense Fund Freedom School. Here I volunteered my time during the summer helping set up the classrooms and supplies, moving and unpacking and organizing; supplies, food, and donations the summer program. I also helped out this summer program by checking people in and out, guiding and directing people where to go, and unload and load the children onto the busses. During the summer I also volunteered a week of my time to be a “buddy” to a special olympiad at their Special Olympics Athletic Retreat. Being a “buddy” included self regulation, chaperoning on field trips one on one, assisted with self care skills when they where needed. Also this summer I volunteered my time for four weeks being a counselor in training at the Stowe YMCA. This included reading to the campers, helping serve meals to the campers, Chaperoning on field trips with the campers and being camp counselors to campers in grades pre-k through fifth grade. I also have been participating on my temple’s youth group advisory board. There I help determine, plan, organize, and run group activities and social events for the youth groups. I have been doing this for the past three years. This group also partakes in several community service projects throughout the

The service learning group I was in included Claudia Hodges, Laurie Wahlstrom, Lucas Johnson, and me. We chose to volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club to fulfill volunteer work requirement. I assisted with the implementation and managing of online collaboration and communication within the group.

I was so nervous, I kept mapping out the exit plans in this room. I didn’t want to be there because I had just got heaps of new toys. We hosted two wonderful ladies named Dolly and Betty. We made a desert and decorated the table while the shelter provided the Christmas dinner. As I sat there, I was just counting hours, eating my food, and dreaming about which toy I was going to use first. As boredom overtook me, I began to listen to the conversations at the table. Dolly was a woman who had been homeless for 6 months. Her husband had died and he was the main source of income, so without his money she had lost her home. She had just started the Bridge to Life program that helped homeless people get their life back on track. Through 10 months of different steps, the shelter helped get them a job and pay off debts while housing and feeding them. As I heard this, I began to realize that some homeless people were not just druggies. They were people that had stories. They had fallen on hard times and couldn’t get back on their feet. I could feel myself soften and become more interested in what was happening with them. I began to ask questions and Dolly told it like it was, without sugarcoating the cold hard truth. I felt guilty for previously complaining about not being able to play with my new toys and these people didn’t even have a home much less security like I did. I had such a perspective shift the next year I asked to serve on Thanksgiving. We volunteered to be servers and take the shelter occupants’ order. We then got the food and served it to them like a five-star restaurant. As I served more people, I began to see the gratitude and thankfulness in these people’s heart. I tried to locate Dolly but she had done so well in the program and moved out in her own house. Hearing about her success

I chose to volunteer at a Christnet Rotating Shelter Program that was at the time located at a local church. This program does not have a permanent location, rather, various accommodating churches host the program. Additionally, this program offers not only daytime programs, but also nightly shelter. However, for this assignment, I opted for an observation of the program’s participants at nighttime. Moving on, I showed up more than an hour early before the sign-in sheets would be distributed to individuals seeking shelter for the night so that I could assist the other volunteers with adjusting the layout of the room and assembling the tables and beds in order to accommodate the needs of the guests. Afterwards, people began to line up outside the church’s door about 6:15 p.m. even though

As this happened he wasn’t able to move and walk and lost all his costumers that he had gained with this business. As this happened his girlfriend and mother of his child had also decided to leave him and take his kid from him. As all these negative things were happening, I would still go and try to talk to him about the gospel and how he can just pray and God will take care of him. One day as things were at its lowest for him he decided to hit me up and asked me to come over chill and pray with him. As I went over and we prayed together and talked I showed him a little bit of the gospel.

The place where I go do my Christian Service is called Saint Mary’s Church which is located on the lower east side. The agency serves the community not only through its prayer service as a Church but also by its works outside of mass. St. Mary’s church focuses on helping out the needy by donations of food and help support its community within and outside of its borders. Coming into the organization I did not know what to expect in terms of what type of people I would meet and what type of work I was doing. Once I found out that I would be doing and where my efforts would be focused on I became more energetic as to what my work would lead to. I along with three other Christian service helpers spent over half way through the 72 hours making candles

Project Homeless Connect is a free resource fair for homeless and at-risk individuals and families. During this one-day event, clients are able to access an array of services ranging from ID services, housing services, resume workshops, clothing banks, vision check and health care to veterans’ services, child care, pet care and much more. They expect to encounter 1,000 clients at this year’s event. I believe that what I did was absolutely helpful to this event due to the number of people there and how important this event was to this Denver community. They practically begged for help for the cleanup crew since there weren’t a great deal of people doing it. I was originally in guest services, but when I talked to Hailey, she told me that she would love my help for the cleanup crew since I was younger than most of the volunteers there. I agreed to help immediately due to the importance of this position and how much they needed my help. This is an annual event that takes place at the Colorado Convention Center and it helps the homeless community in a way that other people wish they could have these free services. I do believe that what exactly I did at this event uses sociology as much, but what I did for the company and what they did represents sociology in a bigger way.