The Stockton 10th annual Day of Service certainly was an interesting experience for me. I was a member of the voting registration team; our job was to get people to fill out forms so they could have the right to vote. We also had the job of getting people in the know about an upcoming election for the New Jersey state Senator. When our initial location had too few people, we moved to the Atlantic City boardwalk. I had the job of both monitoring the table we set up, and walking along the boardwalk to ask passers to register.
There were plenty of good things that came out of the experience. Getting to see Atlantic City for the first time in my life was exiting, and the weather was bearable for the most part. The best part of the whole trip was the positive responses from some people. Many people stated that they were already registered, and I knew that they were telling the truth. Several people stopped to complement our college for what it was doing. Some people even got into lengthy conversations about different subject matters. (I, sadly, was not one of these people.) We also did get several people to register on the spot, and handed out a good couple of forms. But with the good must also come the bad.
There were plenty people who were downright rude. These people either brushed us off like we were nothing, said they were already registered but were clearly lying, and even straight up ignored us. These responses were kind of painful. I was putting effort into this project and they couldn’t care less! Even worse than the people who ignored us were the people who gave us looks of anger or disgust as we asked them or as they passed by. They looked utterly disgusted at what we were doing, it was pretty uncomfortable. The other major problem with our day was in organization; or lack thereof. The voter registration group not only had to relocate, but it took us at least half an hour before we finally got a table, and we never got any chairs. These problems made looking serious quite difficult.
The main thing I take away from the day of service is a lesson in tolerance. I now know not to be rude or brash to people who are trying to advertise or sell stuff from stands like the one we were in. People honestly put effort into these things, and I think it’s disrespectful to ignore them. I think that the Day of Service could’ve gone better for my group, but I still view it as a success and a positive experience overall.