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.

Three Cups of Tea vs. Community Meals

The misconception of people is very similar in what Greg Mortenson experiences in the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and my experiences with Community Meals at First Baptist Church. In Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson points out the fact that most people have the idea that all Muslims are terrorists or awful people. But he clarifies that that is not true and most of the Pakistani people are good caring people. He states this fact when he says, "' I wish all the Americans who think 'Muslim' is just another way of saying 'terrorist' could have been there that day. The true core tenants of Islam are justice, tolerance, and charity, and Syed Abbas respresented the moderate center of Muslim faith eloquently"' (Mortenson 257). The same goes for the perception people have of the homeless and poor. A lot of people think that they are all drug addicted, drunk, or crazy. I found this to be quite wrong when serving food for them at First Baptist Church. They were all nice people and very appreciative of our help. I even saw a couple families, which pulls at your heart strings. I do not believe I saw any crazy people there, and maybe two or three alcohoic or drug addicted people out of 140, which is a pretty good ratio. We all need to follow the phrase, "don't judge a book by its cover", because you never really know the insight into someones life unless you talk to them and get to know them. Just think of all the relaionships you could miss out on just because of assumptions, whether it be a Muslim or a person in need.

First Experience with Service Learning

Soon I will begin volunteering for an orginization called Community Meals through 1st Baptist Church in Everett. Every Friday night people from the church and other volunteers (like me) will come together to prepare and serve food to people in need. We will also interact with the people that come to eat. (first baptist church of Everett website) We will be serving people in need of a meal, i.e.- families, children, homeless. I imagine my first day to go something like this- I walked into the church excited to experience a new surrounding. I could already smell food being made and I sensed a positive vibe in the air. When I walked into the kitchen I was immediately greeted by a woman with a big smile on her face. Seeing her positivity made me that much more excited to start the evening. First, she showed me around and told me a little bit about what would be taking place for the evening. Then she showed me a task to start helping prepare the food. I kept busy for the next hour or so, trying to help prepare as much food as I could. I felt really good about being able to give back, even if it was something like making food for someone. Around 5pm I could start to hear people coming into the eating area. It was time to start serving. As I was serving everyone I was suprised by how many families there were. It made me really thankful for what my family and I have. After serving was cleanup, and then I thanked everyone and headed home, excited to be able to do it again the next week. I chose this Service Learning option because I have always been interesting in volunteering at a shelter type setting. I'm excited to actually be able to do it. I hope that after all this I will continue and possibly be able to bring my son along so he can experience it too and gain a new perspective on how fortunate he really is. I hope I can really make a difference in someone's life as many people over the years have made in mine.

Hi!!