Weekly Reflection 2: Personal Stories
Throughout this week, my main focus was to find out why I feel so satisfied volunteering and why other people volunteered too. As I believe that even if we were forced into volunteering the feeling of accomplishment is the biggest gift tune can give us. Hence, this week I got to really dive into understanding why people volunteer and the reasons people gave me vary from “I find it fun” to deeper answers “I was once in a situation where I needed help, hence, I never want anyone to go through what I had to go through”. Before volunteering, I thought it was something a bunch of rich people do to build their social image, but seeing how young children to grandmas volunteer at the food shelter, I understand that everyone shares the same passion for helping the community.
I loved how I slightly shifted the goal of this project from primarily getting things done to be more interactive with people as it enabled me to get more sociable myself as I really enjoyed hearing people’s personal stories about how they ended up volunteering at the Houston Food Bank. There is just something about listening to people and having a good chat that just makes repetitive tasks sound more interesting than it really is, and it would typically be the best part of my day working at the food bank as I am absorbing all the positive energy around me.
If I’m being honest, I thought most of the volunteers here, especially people my age, were forced here by their schools to get hours, but, I quickly found out that most of the time it wasn’t the case at all. Probably the most interesting story I heard was about a woman in her 40s who recently got laid off from work, and instead of trying to get a job as soon as possible, she took some time off and went volunteering with her 10-year-old daughter to teach her that working isn’t everything and I was just so inspired by the story that I want to raise my kids in 10-20 years time just like her.
I understand the privileges that I have not had to worry about shelter or food even while there are many people out there where worrying about food and shelter is the norm. I hoped that throughout these 2 weeks, I have fully emersed myself in the community I am trying to help. I want to spread my education beyond getting a degree and be able to affect a community in a good way no matter how small it is. Thank you so much to the Houston Food Bank for this eye-opening experience and thank you Houston for welcoming me with open arms.
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