Stockton’s 10th annual day of service was a great turn out. There were lines stretched to the door in the campus center of students waiting in line to sign in for the day of service. We were provided with breakfast and were given boxed lunches. After breakfast the ambassadors of the day ushered the students into the event room which was filled with tables. On the website there was a very brief overview of what each service project was for. My friends and I were a few of the first people to arrive in the event room so we had a lot of options. A majority of the time we wandered around the room trying to decide which project to choose. The big screens with a description of each service project were helpful and in the end a couple of my friends and I chose the Shore Park Tenant Association.
It was a group of about five students and two service project leaders. The main point of our service project was to help prepare and serve the food for a party at the Shore Park Tenant Association, which is a home for the elderly and disabled. We sat around the table and introduced ourselves while waiting quite a long time to be dismissed. We were transported to the Tenant home by a van, except not everyone could fit so the professors took their own car. When we arrived at the place we were very unsure of whether we were even at the right place. We hadn’t obtained any of the professors’ phone numbers so we just walked in. Thankfully there were people expecting us and welcomed us. After getting there most of the tables were already set up so we really didn’t have much to do. We sat around and waited for instructions while the people of the tenant home prepared the food. For a while I helped in the kitchen and cut ribs but did not do much else afterwards. After about an hour of chit chat we finally started to help set up. Around noon the tenants started coming to the dining hall and we started serving food.
Many of the people there were very friendly and extremely excited to get all their food. We took turns at different stations serving food or bringing it to the tables. Some of the tenants had their grandchildren over so I had the chance to take a few kids to the garden in the backyard and play with them. We all were supposed to leave around 2:30, but left a little later. We really should have stayed longer because there were still many tenants that were coming down to eat. If the timing had been better we could have arrived later so that we would have been more involved in serving food. Then we could have left later so that we could have helped with the entire cleanup process, because that was probably the thing they would have needed the most help with.
Overall the entire experience was quite rewarding. I enjoyed being able to help people and interact with them. There were many things, however, that could have been better. First of all, there should be better organization in the event room so that everyone is fully informed of what they are volunteering for. Also the people running the volunteer place did not seem like they were prepared with tasks for the volunteers. If they were more prepared for us then we would have been much more helpful to them. At the end of the day we had a mini reflection session and everyone seemed to enjoy their day except for the waiting around. Next time I hope to feel that I was able to provide more of a service instead of feeling like I spent most of my time waiting around.