Rather than sleeping in late or procrastinating on starting my homework on our day off to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I decided to participate in Penn State's Day of Service. Approximately 400 or so students willingly volunteered to help others in the community and to me, it was one of the first times I felt a pressing sense of civic engagement here at Penn State. Yeah, I know a lot tends to go on at this campus and there are probably plenty of opportunities to participate in other forms of civic engagement, such as open forums, other volunteer efforts and the like, but what struck me the most about the day of service was the vast number of students who decided that their responsibility to help others superseded their own desire to waste the day away.
I found the day of service to be such a rewarding experience. Granted, I was assigned to work in the woods of the Arboretum and required to move some cut down foreign invader trees from a certain area but yet and still, I was appreciative of the experience. It felt great to know that I played an active role in helping our community and I am now inspired to do more.
Often times, we have a tendency of doing things for others with the expectation that something will be done for us in return. However, I can truly say that I did not want or need anything in return for the work I put in on this day of service. The benefit of meeting other students and people from the State College community was awesome enough to me. Yeah, we groaned and complained a bit as we walked over to the Arboretum in the cold weather and soon thereafter learned that we would be working outside for some 2 or 3 hours but in the end, our work spoke for itself and we were all able to say we actually enjoyed the experience. I just hope to become more heavily involved in other volunteer efforts here on campus and in the community because I believe these efforts are a fantastic way to exercise more than just one form of civic engagement.
I think that this is awesome that you spent your day off helping out the Penn State community. This type of civic engagement from our student body is what makes this campus a great place to be. Towards the end of your post you noted that you would like to do more activities of this type to help the community. What other types of activities do you think you'd be interested in? I think it would be awesome to explore the different volunteer opportunities available at school.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great cause to write about! as one of the students who did sleep in on martin luther king day, I have to admire your work. I wonder if more students were involved with the commmunity, would it be better for PSU as a whole?
ReplyDeleteThis post really makes me feel like a bum. I wish I had done something productive like this with my time. This civic engagement real sheds a bright light on the school that we care about and call home for most of the year. I just wish I could have done something like this.
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