On Saturday September 10, 2011, Stockton held its eighth annual day of service. This day, sponsored by the Office of Student Development, consisted of several different community service projects within Stockton’s campus or near the area.
The day started off with registration and the assignment of the projects. Afterwards, we filled out a survey that asked us what we hoped to get out of the day. As I entered the event room to enjoy a continental breakfast, I could see the large group of people already in there, eagerly awaiting a fun-filled day dedicated to service. Something memorable from that day was when our guest speaker delivered his speech. He was a first-response firefighter who recounted his experiences of the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Towards the end of the speech, he stressed the importance of community service and then dismissed us into our groups for the day.
My team, which consisted of myself and six other students, headed to the African American Heritage Museum located in Newtonville, NJ. Throughout the whole day, we were supervised by Mr. David Pinto, the Director of Stockton’s Library, who is also a member of the board of the museum. On our thirty minute commute there, he told us how we would be helping the members of the museum unload and take inventory of Jackie Robinson’s memorabilia. upon arriving there, the founder of the museum, Ralph Hunter, warmly greeted us and without hesitation began to give us a tour. As he took us around to see some memorabilia of famous African Americans, I could see the joy in his eyes as he proceeded to tell us the significance of the items. Not only was he excited that we had volunteered to help, but I could sense that he was extremely proud to be collecting some priceless objects in history. He would have preferred to show us around more, but Mr. Pinto said that we needed to start to work because of the time schedule we were on.
Our team helped life and unload crates of timeless memorabilia with many other volunteers. As part of the process, we took pictures and accounted for them in inventory until we were finished. As the day came winding down, some of the volunteers uncovered a signed baseball bat from Jackie Robinson himself, an item so valuable and preserved throughout history from such a major sports icon. By the end of the day, I realized that I had met some great people from my time spent there and that we had all helped the community. All the volunteers at the end had a picture taken together in front of some collectibles in the museum. Before I knew it, it was already time to return to Stockton to reflect on our day and have lunch.
I personally enjoyed myself because I learned a lot about some of the major pioneers in our country during a time of segregation and oppression. I am very grateful for having had experienced this and I realized how many opportunities there are around Stockton to make a difference and how easy it was to participate. I look forward to next year’s Day-of-Service at Stockton very much.