For the Children

Q#75: Community service can be a valuable part of the college experience. If you were to devote one year of service to a volunteer project, what would it be, and what would you hope to accomplish? (Goucher)

A volunteer project that I have always wanted to do or be a part of was building schools for children in third world countries, like in Kenya or something. Ever since I was a young lass I loved to build things and work with my hands. So today, I’m not surprised to find that careers I’m interested in have to do with, shocker, my hands and building. Not only would I be doing this wonderful thing for others, I would be having a blast myself. I love the outdoors and “roughing it” and there, of course, would be locals around and children, who would just make it absolutely fantastic. I love little kids. Like during my eleventh grade activity week we went on a hike for 9 days and one day we stopped just outside of this village. Mr. Kutty, our chaperone, let us go into the village as we had ample amount of time before dinner. So, we split into smaller groups and into the village we went. I had an absolute blast with these little kids everywhere! Even though there was this language barrier, we could still play and laugh and have a wonderful time. I taught them the Macarena, how to make funny faces, chased them around the village, played hand games, scared them and so on and so on. Unfortunately I had to leave, but then they came to our actually campsite begging me to come play again! I had the biggest smile and off I went. I’ve never been so happy and seen such joy in my life. Making them smile made me smile. But seeing these poor, dirty kids and the conditions they lived in made my passion for wanting to help third world children grow ten times stronger. For people to have nothing and have to work so hard just to get by every, single day and still be able to have that kind of joy is not only mind blowing but inspiring. Out of this volunteering, there’s nothing in particular I’m looking to accomplish; just to give these children something to smile about. J