Service
In this page, I've collected reflections on service learning experiences I had in 2023. They indicate some of my perspective and social values.
Reflection 3
Reflection 2
I recently volunteered at a local food pantry, the Storrs Congregational Church Food Pantry. I met volunteers and staff who run the program, and I worked with them to help a handful of visitors take the food they wanted. I welcomed guests, provided occasional assistance as they selected food items, and guided their checkout process. I learned the logistics of how the food pantry operates in receiving donations, organizing inventory and client data, and serving clients food. There are several memorable parts of my experience that I will try to include in my reflection.
Prominently, one of the other volunteers, Linda, described to me how the food pantry requests visitors to limit themselves to only 1 of certain products but lets them take more, just saying “take what you need”. A few minutes later, I saw her tell a hungry guest the same thing. This makes sense, and I’ve seen many times the general principle of having a rule or guideline but allowing for exceptions, but this felt special to me with its gentle kindness and acceptance. I was touched by the compassion and inclusiveness of this response, as it articulated an attitude that I’ve considered but struggled to define. Oftentimes reality doesn’t meet whatever general rules or guidelines people make, and I think the way people respond to that is important. This attitude is one I would like to present to others in interactions, at least in some circumstances. It is possible that someone will take advantage of the church’s current policy, and I don’t know how sustainable this is in the long term. However, I have grown to appreciate communities built on honor systems like these, because it helps me appreciate this beautiful part of human nature to help each other as well as the fragility of the community built on it.
Another part of my experience I’m reflecting on was meeting James, a guest coming to the food pantry for the first time. As a staff member and I showed him around the room, he told us a little about his family’s food situation, and he demonstrated a mix of self-confidence and weakness that I found interesting. I hadn’t connected the phrase of food insecurity with the everyday idea of someone feeling insecure, but this is one example to consider. However, James was articulate, white, male, clean, and I enjoyed when he complimented my “customer service” saying he’d worked in it for years. My experience with him suggests that I could have underlying biases about people, although I’m struggling to specifically define them.
Overall, I immensely enjoyed this volunteering activity. I’ve noticed similar enjoyment in my customer service job at a fast food store, but this also felt valuable because I was helping people get real food they could afford, and the whole premise of my workplace was to help people. I didn’t directly contribute much to helping them, but I enjoyed being part of the process, and this supports the train of thought that I can feel meaning in contributing to a larger organization or cause that helps others and reflects my values. I believe this service experience was valuable to me and supports my personal and professional growth.
Reflection 1
I recently volunteered at a Baby Blanket Making event, supporting the Yale New Haven Hospital NICU. With several other volunteers, I made a baby blanket using materials and templates provided by the event hosts and packaged it with a note for the recipients. This was primarily a hands-on activity, where I met a few other volunteers, and the experience has offered me several opportunities for growth.
This event helped me consider the experiences of babies and their families. Human babies can be thought of as another minority group of society, deserving of equality with other humans, and I frankly have not often thought about them with due respect. Taking the time to make a blanket for them helped me change how I think about them. Babies are extremely unable to care for their same needs we all share, such as adjusting their clothes to stay warm; imagining their helplessness really motivated me to devote care to my work to help them. But more than that, considering them as people who need help inspired me to take my work seriously, just as I would for an adult who needed my help. Reflecting on this experience helps me understand this more deeply.
Lately, I have been thinking about how I can use my skills and resources to positively impact individuals’ health and wellness as well as society’s at large. Currently, I believe I don’t want to pursue a traditional clinical career like being a doctor or a nurse, and I’m majoring in Computer Science because that represents one of my most marketable skills. CS offers me the potential to work across any industry in society, but much of it seems to feel distant from my passion for helping people. This event was part of my recent efforts in the last few months to explore alternatives to help people, such as my capacity to appreciate indirect contributions to others’ lives and my interest in working with my hands. I enjoyed the craft-based nature of this activity, which made my experience much more rewarding. I particularly remember a conversation with someone at the event about how the blankets needed to be cut and intertwined a certain way and how we could fix a torn blanket. I was really engaged in the details of the activity, and I loved collaborating with a partner on how to make the best blanket with what we had. It reminds me that I used to love building Legos as a child, and I have some affinity for crafting and using my hands. I’ve heard several people in my field, computer science, relate to these interests and describe their work as a similar kind of building, making structures of code that perform a task and solve a problem. This Baby Blanket Making event has helped me see connections between all of my interests and ideas about my future, and with more experience, I will change how I see my life.
Overall, this experience was a significant and enjoyable part of my college journey. It has helped me understand myself in my passions, my strengths, and my potential to contribute to others. Future experiences will help me grow on this path, and I’m sure I will find a way to live by my values.