Throughout my college career I have not once volunteered my time do something for someone else. I never knew what was going on in my surrounding community, and I never thought that anyone really needed my help. That is until I enrolled into Business 3300. Dr. Irabor has taught me about the importance of servicing my community. He has also taught me the difference between service learning, community service, and volunteering. Volunteering is any activity that involves spending unpaid time, doing something that aims to benefit the environment or and individual, like a close relative or a group or group. This could be done through a private or public or voluntary organizations. The important thing that makes it volunteering is that is must be a choice that has been made freely, and not forced. This is something that might sound like common since, but it is something that needs to be said multiple times. Community Service is very similar to volunteering, because both involve not being paid for the time that you put in to help an individual. However, what separates Community service from volunteering is community service involves the volunteering of an individual or organization to benefit a community or its institutions. So, if one was doing community service, they would be doing work for like a court house or the community school. Service learning is the easiest to explain because it is all about what a student in community service activities learns. It is like community service because it involves community service, but it is deferent because the student is their mostly to learn about community service for an academic development. Service-learning engages students in a three-part process: classroom preparation through explanation and analysis of theories and ideas; service activity that emerges from and informs classroom context; and structured reflection tying service experience back to specific learning goals. Service learning is planned out with the local community partners and service recipients. As part of my Service learning assignment, Dr. Irabor has asked my class to volunteer at the Houston Food Bank. The Houston Food Bank is a private non-profit organization founded in 1982 by Joan and Stanford
Specific Purpose: To inform the audience of the workings of the Houston Food Bank and the concepts discussed during the course which were demonstrated through our volunteer experience.
Does volunteering have a decisive influence on discovering me? When I registered the house-repairing activity at the Kochang, South Korea, rather taking a vacation on someplace different, I called it a win-win circumstance based on experiencing various skills on manual labor while meeting the call of others. However, far from the trite reaction of feeling great because I am serving others, I perceive not just contributing to our community is vital in itself, but assisting others more serves me to learn and intensify further about my character; to come to be a PA, withholding a sheer willingness to devote my knowledge to others is imperative. Moreover, Because of my past as being part of the marginalized population, I learned the brutal life
The benefit of service learning for the student and community is again a better inform civic minded individual who may use his experience from service learning as a launching pad for career opportunities to better serve within that community. In an article published in the College Student Journal its author noted that with service learning “students gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility" (Strange,
Community service is intended to help others at any given reason, service learning is intentional and is meant to have educational structure and purpose behind it. Community service takes a less structured place to volunteer and can be focused anywhere. Service learning is a little more tedious and has a stronger focus on working with and learning about the targeted focal group of the intended group or community. According to the article of “The effectiveness of service learning: It’s not always what you think” “Service-learning is also a teaching strategy that offers students opportunities to learn both in the classroom and in the wider
I chose to volunteer at the Houston Food Bank because many people are affected by not getting enough food to eat every day. The Houston Food Bank is a member of the nation’s
Community Service is a way to help others meet their needs. It is important for people to help their neighbors so a community can be strong and successful. By helping doing community service one can also learn new skills to help enhance one’s education.
To understand the importance of volunteering, I volunteered at one cultural event in San Antonio downtown. It was the festival of Diwali, a festival of light celebrate in India every year, organized by the San Antonio municipal and Indian Association. In San Antonio’s downtown we have a Riverwalk and the booth was on one side of river with the bleacher and on the other side was the stadium. Folk dances of India were performed on the stage. I volunteered at a booth of drink. My job was to sell soft drinks like coke for a dollar. I made a working there on the booth and we both had almost same interests due to that I was very surprised. There was also another booth next to us. I helped them to load, carry and organize their booth with food. This
Many people do not care about where they come from. Many people are selfish with their time and effort, but not me I do care about where I came from and I devote most of my time and effort to make many people happy. I try my hardest to do the right thing and to give back when I know I should. Giving back to my community is an important thing to me. People should care and protect about their communities. Three reasons why giving back to my community is important to me is because my community has done so much for me, I take so much pride in where I am from, and because I want people to see how wonderful my community is.
According to Felten and Clayton in the article Service Learning, they discuss with us how beneficial service learning is for students, staff, and community members.The effectiveness in Service learning includes the general community coming together to help serve a greater purpose. In regards to college, service learning serves as and experience to gain partnership and collaboration throughout the experience and community.For my service learning narrative, i chose to volunteer again with Ignite Church at James Monroe Elementary. From 2-4 we worked with a group of 4th graders on different activities that consisted of critical thinking, imagination, and problem-solving. The purpose of this afternoon was to connect with at least one of the students
Service-Learning is a combination of doing community service and having an opportunity to learn things out of the service done (www.thestamp.umd.edu). It is a strategy of teaching and learning in which meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience and strengthen communities is incorporated.
On the other hand we have volunteering, volunteering is the act of community service. Now the difference between the two is through service learning ones able to gain more knowledge of their community, and allows opportunity to reflect on how to improve the situation addressed. The service I provided was not only helping the non-profit Cub Scouts organization raise funds, but I was also giving back to the community with the Cub Scouts. We did so by washing citizens cars that came to donate to the Cub Scouts, doing this we addressed the issue of civic responsibility and provided a service for a small donation. I consider this service learning because I was able to apply what I have learned about sociology to encourage a positive outcome for the organization and the community through civic responsibility. I also benefitted with further knowledge to help better my communication skills, leadership, and civic responsibility. By doing this I have learned different ways to give back to my community and how to address civic responsibility among the community. Because of this experience I am continuing my service to the Cub Scouts Pact 328, and I will be applying to volunteer at a local hospital when I move to Lawrence, Kansas this
It is interesting that you brought up the programs that assist with homeless students on campus. I spoke with one of the Texas Workforce representatives a few weeks ago and she informed me about many programs that give homeless youth the opportunity to “drop by” when they are in need of a temporary place to go during the day. Although these services are limited they are very beneficial for those students struggling with finding a place to go in between school and where they call “home”.
I was very excited to go to the Houston Food Bank, as everyone talks about it how they provide food to needy people every day. The Houston Food Bank is America’s largest food bank, founded in 1982. The organization is certified member of Feeding America, the nation’s food bank network. Houston Food Bank distributes meals, feed around 800,000 people each year. Fresh produce, meat, and nonperishables are distributed from the warehouse at 535 Port wall, and hot meals are prepared and distributed from Keegan Center, a 15,000 square foot industrial kitchen. The organization plans to grow to an annual distribution of 100 million nutritious meals by 2018. Their vision is food access for all and their mission is to lead the fight against
I am active through volunteering in my community. I do most of my volunteering through my chruch. I have volunteered through a group called SELF. They help people in Middletown that need repairs on their homes, but are unable to afford them. I worked for them for about two weeks. Another volunteer activity I participated in is working at my high school's courtyard as we picked weeds and mulched it for a week and a half. On sunday nights I'm a leader of a small group of junior high kids at my church and I talk to them for about an hour after our church service and discuss events that are happening in their life. Another leadership role that I had was I was the captain of our Varsity Booys Soccer team. I tend to do most of my volunteering throughtout
Service learning is an up and coming method of teaching in many universities across the country. Community service and volunteering are very similar to service learning, so similar in fact that people tend to get them confused or believe that they are all the same thing. Although, they are similar to service learning projects, they are not at all the same. Service learning projects are educationally based projects that are not only beneficial to the community in which students and educators are working in, but it is also beneficial to the students and educators who are working with the community (McDonald & Dominguez, 2015).