I participated at the Commuters on the Go Afternoon of Service on October 13th, 2016. Commuters on the Go sponsored the event in the Board of Trustees’ room with a great turnout of honors and non-honors students. The environment was warm and friendly as we all sat at round tables and were instructed on different crafts by my honors mentor, Zeal Kamdar. In my group we were instructed to make birthday cards to give out to less fortunate people who couldn’t afford cards for loved ones. Other tables made stuffed animals to handout to others in similar situations as well. While this was only a one-time event, the event felt like it will make a difference when the time comes for the items to be given out to the people they were made for.
After the event, we participated in a reflection session where tones became much more serious. We discussed the effects that reaching out to disenfranchised populations can have. The situation is often more serious than it seems and is less the fault of the people who are in those situations, but the situations they were thrown into. One example that hit particularly hard and really drove home the point that my group and myself discussed after was the example of a veteran who returns home from war with either mental or physical trauma, or perhaps both. Too often these brave individuals lack resources to get them back on their feet. Sometimes they come back with hardly any money to afford a place to live, food, and clothes. Perhaps a person in this position might have trouble getting a job too, making it even harder for them to become a normal civilian with all necessities taken care of. However, if we could improve situations like this that someone might be in, why wouldn’t we? That is what this outreach event was all about, the underlying ways in which even a little empathy and compassion will go a long way in order to help those in need. I really enjoyed the event and look forward to participating in more of the same or similar events to make a difference in the community around me.