Personal Narrative: Senator Hart

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

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

I have been an avid member of my churches youth group for seven years alongside my older brother Mason who is currently enlisted in the US Navy and my younger sister Savannah who is a sophomore at East Ridge High School. Through the years we have been able to come together as a community to host soup kitchens, charity garage sales,and providing homework help, snacks, and hot meals to underprivileged children in the area through our group East Ridge

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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

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

I volunteered at the Little Lights Urban Ministries. I had the pleasure of working with adults and kids but, majority were adults in a low income community. Little lights was founded in 1995 by Steven Park. Little Lights is located in Potomac Gardens public housing apartments in Washington DC. It all started off with Steven tutoring one child in an uptown neighborhood. Then he met his wife Mary and things started expanded. They started allowing 15 kids come over after school to do homework and bible study. Sometimes they would order pizza or buy chicken to feed the kids if they stayed over late. A couple of years later they was blessed with the main building and somebody donated a van for transportation. Steven then start his nonprofit and

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 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 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

Upon arrival, our first activity was to work in the trailer park. While these people were not homeless, they were in quite severe poverty. However, they were nothing like one may expect. One was a very friendly older woman who had worked and gone to college in her younger days but she had been abducted and hurt severely in her twenties. Even though that happen, she was cheerful and had poetic talents. Another was a family whose screen door we replaced because they could not afford a new one. The father was hard working and was made sure all of his children had an education and a roof over their head while the mother cooked and cleaned. Each was doing their part to make the best of their lives. The last was a middle aged couple who needed their trailer badly cleaned. They not only were thankful but they prayed over our group before we left. We a blessing to each of their lives but, they were to ours as