Service Learning Team Reflection Paper

I decided to start volunteering at the local humane society because I’ve always been really passionate about animals and wanted to start benefiting them in the community. Prior to my service I was delighted because I’ve wanted to start volunteering for years and was glad the opportunity had presented itself. Throughout my experience I learned a great deal and met a lot of new people. Even though I’ve only just started serving my time at the Fox Valley Humane Association I can truly see the difference it has made in the community.

A Service Learning project is one of the project requirements to complete the Bachelors of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree through Ferris State University (FSU). My Service Learning experience was completed at the VA Medical Center (VAMC) in November, 2014. This paper includes details of the facility along with the contact information for the coordinator of the project. A description of my role as a volunteer, critical reflection of my experience, and a synthesis of the Service Learning are also included.

When I began my Civics class, thinking it potentially difficult and boring, I did not initially look forward to this project. However, as I did each activity, I found myself enjoying each and every one. From sitting in a board meeting to collecting trash, I discovered something new in all of the ways I volunteered. Not only did the people I volunteered for gain something through my service, but I feel that I gained a lot as well.

I go to St. James every other Wednesday. On Wednesday, the food truck is delivered to St. James Food Pantry. The assignment for the day is listed on the white board in the back of the pantry. The assignments state what bag a volunteers are doing and what contents needs to be in each bag. In each bag, the items will consist of one item from each food group on the food pyramid. St. James is about supplying their clients with nutritional food because they want to help clients not only physical but mental. After filling the bags that the specific person is assigned to, volunteers go to help other groups and organized shelves. At that time any open cases of food: are either stock them or put them in any assigned bags. Before lunch time, volunteers start to prepare the homeless lunch and for nutrition class. My job tasks, is to prepare the homeless lunch and lunch table. I have to prepare about forty-five sandwiches, desserts, chip and juices for the homeless in zip-codes St. James serves.

The problem of pollution comes with the ever expanding human population. With this growing population our demand for products also increases. We live in a consumer society, especially in the United States, and making huge quantities of products generates a large amount of pollution and waste. American citizens love to buy, we represent only 5% of the global population but we use 25% of the world's resources. The unfortunate part is that all the resources we use to make products end up in some landfill somewhere because a huge amount of Americans don't understand the importance of recycling and reducing consumption of products. American citizens throw away 40% of the food they purchase. That number is ridiculous, especially since so many Americans

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.

My experience has been consistent with what we learned in class. This project brought light to the horrifying abuse that large number of children go through at a young age and this service learning project allowed me to better understand their suffering and their need for assistance. My service learning project made the course material relevant, because I could now better understand the necessity to provide support and comfort to children at a young age.

So we set up the peanut butter and jelly station, which made the sandwiches and put them in a sandwich Ziploc. There was the chips station that put the chips in the bag with the peanut butter station, and then there was the water station. The water station put the final item in the bag, which was the water bottle and then put the completed bags into a box for loading purposes. Once we established who was doing what, it was a very productive day. We made 130 bags to give away to the less fortunate at Newark Penn Station. We did not have a set goal of how many bags we needed to make, but I am sure we exceeded that

My first, 3 hour, volunteer session was this past Saturday morning at the food bank warehouse. I worked alongside a team of 9 people with Ben, our lead supervisor, and Fran Tally, the organization’s volunteer coordinator. Our shift assignment was to unpack large boxes of mingled frozen meats and pack the contents into separate 40 pound boxes. These individually packed boxes were required to contain beef, poultry, or pork.

National Association of Letter Carriers’ “HELP STAMP OUT HUNGER” Food Drive: Saturday, May 14, 2006

Over the past few months in our Business Communication class we participated in a service learning project called “Big Brothers Big Sisters”. We divided into small groups in order to focus on different aspects of the organization during this project. The project included three main groups, each focused on different aspects of the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. The first group was responsible for social media around campus. The second group managed Public Relations which made flyers and used other media resources to spread the word throughout campus. The third and final group focused on planning. This included different activities and parties for the children. As a class we were to plan and coordinate two functions that included the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

Freedom...sounds like such a simple idea.  The United States is the greatest country in the world and I have the honor of living in one of its most beautiful areas.  Northeastern Tennessee is full of beautiful mountains, recreational lakes and proud people. I would like to accept the challenges and sacrifices faced by our service men and women, and, in doing so, proudly represent those people who have done so much for me. I would quickly accept the opportunity to serve our great nation and to help protect our freedoms as our veterans have done in the past.  My interest in serving our country, specifically by attending a service academy, started at a young age.  I attended an air show and toured a battleship while my family was on vacation,

During the planning portion there was defiantly a lack of participation among several of our group members. Although some members were lackadaisical(#1)in the beginning of the project they were able to hone(#2)in on the project and assist in its completion. The overall flow of our project was there was a person or two who organized the project and assigned people to tasks. For most of the part this system worked with out faults, but as everything involving groups there were some differences in opinion the cause of action for certain tasks but they were easily sorted out. The effort while exceptionally equal there were several people who preformed with a fallow attitude towards the project these people including Alex Maylay, Nikalaas Kolosso, Morgan Irving, Sean gallogly, and Harry Clevenger. Several people in the project preformed with flying colors, these people include Conner Berry, Hayley Rice, and Kate Albean. The made the most contributions and helped support the remains group members. The group had struggles in managing there time, but managed to get the job done even with the unexpected remodel on the final day of

In the management 100 class, students are expected to do a Community Engagement Volunteer project in which a group of students work with one of many non profit organizations around Clark University. Our group consisted of five members including Emilee Cocuzzo, Siddhartha Dogra, Wurood Mandawi, Ricardo Carrillo, and Trung Ngo, and we worked together to organize a Bingo and a Bake and Sale Night fundraiser for the Main Street YMCA teenagers to go on a college trip in the summer of 2016. We began working as soon as the day when our group was formed. We were given very clear instructions from our professor about how to go about the whole project. We were first asked to select an organization which all of us were interested in working with. During

I noticed each person lived beyond the normal. I would not expect any of them being from the projects or anything like that. The meals we served were amazing.