Final Thoughts

As my service learning experience comes to an end, I will share one last reflection: Serving others requires understanding their needs rather than simply judging them as bad people and writing them off.

For the past three weeks, I've been volunteering at Everett Community Meals through the First Baptist Church of Everett. I have been helping prepare and serve dinner to people in need.

Assumptions can often be completely wrong. Despite the common perception that Community Meals volunteers enjoy financial stability, most of them are also needy. Before this experience began, I assumed that the other volunteers would all be middle to upper class. This assumption proved wrong on the first day. Almost half of them were people in need who had come to eat as well as volunteer. I thought it was really nice that they would volunteer to help other people just like themselves. Why not?

This experience has definitely helped me to not make assumptions or judge hastily. People in need are usually normal, every day people who happen to be experiencing hardships in their lives. Now when I see people who seem needy walking down the street, I try to take a minute to understand their situation and not judge them as bad people. If everyone could change their perceptions accordingly, I suspect that the world would be a bit better.