Volunteer Experience
Once a volunteer, always a volunteer. It's not an action, it's a mindset.
In middle school I started volunteering at small family or church events. Volunteering was always important: my mother was involved in Right to Life and numerous church organizations, and my father was heavily involved in St. Vincent DePaul charities. Naturally, I volunteered quite a bit in high school. The volunteer experiences that stuck with me were LeBlond Club and Su Casa.
LeBlond boys and girls club is located in a very poor part of Over the Rhine in Cincinnati, OH. The club offered activities and tutoring for students after school for three to four hours until their parents or a family friend could pick them up. This volunteer experience opened up my eyes to the world around me and exposed poverty.
For some kids, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that we offered as a snack was their first meal of the day (and this was around 4 pm). I had to be very patient with students while tutoring because many of them still couldn't read or write even in 6th grade. I felt uncomfortable again. I was in a rough part of town surrounded by abandoned lots, dilapidated buildings, and barbed wire fences. Often I was the only person of my race in the room. Here we are, two volunteering buddies and I, coming to a poor neighborhood from a prestigious private Catholic high school.
It was quite a shock, but we came every week. I befriended many of the students and they looked forward to having us there. The kids loved piggy back rides.
One day in particular sticks in my mind. I was reading a children's book to one of the kids, who was about eight years old. I had him try to read parts of the book. He tried his hardest to sound out every word but was very, very slow. My naive self asked if he ever read with his parents. I should have known that kids always answer bluntly. I had assumed he came from a traditional family, but I couldn't be farther from the truth. He was raised by a single mom who worked from morning until evening. Even more, his mother did not read well either. I was flabbergasted.
These kids were great kids, but they were stuck in less than desirable family situations with a bad schooling system.
Su Casa is a Hispanic center located in Cincinnati in a poorer neighborhood as well. This was one of my first interactions with students of Hispanic origins. Their parents were often first generation immigrants. My job as a tutor and mentor was to help these student with their vocabulary homework and math homework.
These kids not only had to catch up to the rest of the English speaking class, but they also had to overcome the language barrier. It was a tough and abrupt transition, especially for someone in grade school.
I specifically remember trying to teach the students English vocabulary words (that native English speaking students were taking) but having to translate the list of synonyms and antonyms into Spanish to the best I could. Essentially these kids had to double their vocabulary due to the language barrier.
These two volunteer experiences with disadvantaged students made me realize that even though this type of volunteering was much more difficult than traditional volunteering (i.e. collecting canned goods) it was these people who needed help the most.
In middle school I started volunteering at small family or church events. Volunteering was always important: my mother was involved in Right to Life and numerous church organizations, and my father was heavily involved in St. Vincent DePaul charities. Naturally, I volunteered quite a bit in high school. The volunteer experiences that stuck with me were LeBlond Club and Su Casa.
LeBlond boys and girls club is located in a very poor part of Over the Rhine in Cincinnati, OH. The club offered activities and tutoring for students after school for three to four hours until their parents or a family friend could pick them up. This volunteer experience opened up my eyes to the world around me and exposed poverty.
For some kids, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that we offered as a snack was their first meal of the day (and this was around 4 pm). I had to be very patient with students while tutoring because many of them still couldn't read or write even in 6th grade. I felt uncomfortable again. I was in a rough part of town surrounded by abandoned lots, dilapidated buildings, and barbed wire fences. Often I was the only person of my race in the room. Here we are, two volunteering buddies and I, coming to a poor neighborhood from a prestigious private Catholic high school.
It was quite a shock, but we came every week. I befriended many of the students and they looked forward to having us there. The kids loved piggy back rides.
One day in particular sticks in my mind. I was reading a children's book to one of the kids, who was about eight years old. I had him try to read parts of the book. He tried his hardest to sound out every word but was very, very slow. My naive self asked if he ever read with his parents. I should have known that kids always answer bluntly. I had assumed he came from a traditional family, but I couldn't be farther from the truth. He was raised by a single mom who worked from morning until evening. Even more, his mother did not read well either. I was flabbergasted.
These kids were great kids, but they were stuck in less than desirable family situations with a bad schooling system.
Su Casa is a Hispanic center located in Cincinnati in a poorer neighborhood as well. This was one of my first interactions with students of Hispanic origins. Their parents were often first generation immigrants. My job as a tutor and mentor was to help these student with their vocabulary homework and math homework.
These kids not only had to catch up to the rest of the English speaking class, but they also had to overcome the language barrier. It was a tough and abrupt transition, especially for someone in grade school.
I specifically remember trying to teach the students English vocabulary words (that native English speaking students were taking) but having to translate the list of synonyms and antonyms into Spanish to the best I could. Essentially these kids had to double their vocabulary due to the language barrier.
These two volunteer experiences with disadvantaged students made me realize that even though this type of volunteering was much more difficult than traditional volunteering (i.e. collecting canned goods) it was these people who needed help the most.