What I Learned Serving
Print this Page- By Emily Pearson
- Country: Latvia
- Dates of Service: 2000–2002
When I was in high school, I became a member of the National Honor Society (NHS). Each year the NHS organized a community service project. The community service project involved asking students and local businesses for donations such as lunch foods, hygiene products, and winter clothing. One weekend in the winter, we gathered at my high school and prepared 100 sack lunches and hygiene kits. When we completed the kits, we took the food, supplies, and winter clothing to the less affluent sections of downtown Denver, where members of the NHS and our teachers distributed the kits to people living on the streets and at a homeless shelter.
Now as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I realize our community service project could have been better organized and ideally should have included more self-sufficiency components, but the humanitarian gesture of reaching out to those who do not have their basic needs met made a strong impression on me. It helped shape my feelings about the need for service and the importance of helping people to help themselves.
Later, while studying at my university, I was involved in the English Club, also known as the Campus Literary Arts Society (CLAS). The most important thing I learned from helping to organize literary events was the value of delegation: It is impossible to do everything yourself! Being involved in CLAS helped to prepare me for Peace Corps service. Through organizing events, I learned to be flexible and patient, and to keep my mind open to different possibilities, expectations, and ways of measuring the success of an event or project. Serving in a foreign country is teaching me that I have more to offer others than I ever imagined; I can do more than I think is possible; and every individual has something valuable to contribute.
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