Make a Difference Day starts with good intentions. Community projects that need volunteers to do work that full-time volunteers cannot accomplish. A few other students and I chose to help the Police Athletic League. The PAL helps underprivileged children, providing activities for them that they would have never had otherwise. One program that was cited was their robotics groups, where children built robots for competitions.

From the beginning, things began to go downhill. The person who was supposed to meet with us was absent, and his replacement tried to fill in the best he could. It honestly seemed like they expected more people to arrive, and the tasks we were given did not align with what the description for the event told. We were not told to bring gloves, but we were then told off for not bringing any. Another volunteer and I weeded a garden, while another group collected rocks so they would not get caught in the lawnmower. After that, most of our time was spent untangling Christmas lights and seeing if they worked. Overall, many of the volunteers expected to do something else. I understand grounds beautification is something that full time volunteers cannot get to. It does serve an important purpose, even if it is rather tiring.

However, the project as a whole could have used some better communication. At multiple parts of the day we were left unsupervised for longer than ten minutes. We were also told we could buy food nearby, but then a few of us found out that the nearest place we could get food was unfeasibly far away. During a discussion held on the way back to Stockton, we all agreed that there were major problems that needed to be addressed with the PAL. Hopefully, they will be resolved the next time they ask for volunteer work. Hopefully this serves as a good warning for the Honors committee that sometimes investigation needs to be done for the sake of volunteer’s time. One bad experience may discourage people from other days of service.

Students beat the heat on September 9^th as part of Stockton’s annual Day of Service. The event began at 8:00 am with students receiving a free breakfast before going to meet with the volunteer heads for over a dozen activities. Some of the activities were on-campus, while others required a short ride in a van. I volunteered for the ACUA (Atlantic County Utilities Authority), with Professor Greene being our volunteer head.

This was my first time attending the Day of Service, but it did feel very confusing at first. I signed up for the event on the day it started, expecting it to be full of volunteer organizations looking for students to help them throughout the year. This did not turn out to be the case, as I found out. The Day of Service did live up to its name, but I feel like freshman students barely had any information going into the event, as other people who were freshman or first year transfer students in my group were confused as well. The ACUA’s event also could have been more specific, as many of us thought we will be going to a park to pick up trash.

Once we arrived at the ACUA, we were given shirts with the company’s acronym on it, as well as gloves. The ACUA maintains greenhouses and rents plots to communities and individuals and contains a recycling facility for all the recyclable waste in Atlantic County. We were introduced to an associate from the company and were tasked with helping clear the greenhouse from various weeds that had grown there over the summer. We worked for two hours pulling various species of plants from the greenhouse, until the extreme heat brought us indoors for an early lunch. We were very successful, cleaning out a large majority of the weeds in the greenhouse to be turned into compost.

For the second half of the day, we got to visit the community plots and pull weeds as well. However, the relative heat and humidity, as well as our group being very tired and overheated from our few hours in the greenhouse meant we only cleaned the gardens for an hour before leaving early.

Overall, the day was a success. Keeping the greenhouses clean is an important community service, as we learned that not only do people from Atlantic City come to garden but people from communities that are farther away as well. Most people cannot upkeep their plots, which is how poison ivy or weeds spread and invade into other plots, ruining the garden. It also was a nice outing to learn about different kinds of plants, since my group needed to weed out mint plants, which spread and invaded one part of the gardens. Even if the weather was very disagreeable, I found it enjoyable, as I did not have many opportunities to work or keep a garden during my years in high school.