On October 13, 2016, I attended Stockton’s Afternoon of Service sponsored by Commuters on the Go.  The event was held from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in the Board of Trustee’s Room in the Campus Center.  This activity was comprised of two sections, one of which was volunteer service stations and the other being a reflection session.  As mentioned by group leader Zeal, there will be another event hosted later in the semester.

Upon arriving at the event, I noticed that there was not a large turn-out of volunteers.  Personally I found this shocking since I had heard that there was a great deal of volunteers at the Day of Service earlier in the semester.  Although I attended along with my friends, there were other attendees who I had not met before but now had to opportunity to work alongside of and meet.  The event consisted of three service projects scattered on three tables around the room.  The first project presented was a sewing project.  At this table, colorful fabric was used to sew together teddy bears and heart shaped pillows for children who suffer from cancer. Some fragmentary bears were left on the table from previous sessions and are able to be worked on at the next Afternoon of Service later in the semester.  The second project presented was a craft of making heart-shaped baskets.  The baskets are going to be given to the elderly in nursing homes for Mother’s Day.  As well, thoughtful messages were written on construction paper to be placed into the baskets.  Both the teddy bear and the basket projects were ones I did not partake in, yet, I did partake in the third project.  The third project was the creation of birthday cards for homeless families who are not financially able to purchase gifts let alone cards for their children’s birthdays.  The designs on the outside of the cards were left up to our imaginations whereas the inside of the cards were left blank.  The purpose of the card being blank on the inside was so that the families could personalize the cards for their children.

Following the volunteer aspect of the event, a brief reflection session was held.  For the reflection activity, each participant was given three post-it notes.  We were instructed to write down a person, an object, and a trait that we deemed important to us.  Randomly, we were to switch our post-it notes with someone unfamiliar to us and then to throw away one of the person’s post-its into a bin.  Then, we received our individual post-it notes and had to see which note was missing.  The purpose of the demonstration was to have people realize the detriments of losing something important to them.  For me, I was upset with the post-it note that was discarded and I cannot imagine what it would be like to actually lose it.  Overall, I found this event and dialogue session impacting and one that I wish to be a part of in the future.