I recently volunteered at the American Red Cross Blood Drive for the fall semester, which took place on September 17-18, 2014 from 10-3 pm in Big Blue. I signed up ahead of time to volunteer on the 18^th from 2-3 pm. Two other volunteers and I arrived punctually at 2 and were told to relieve the volunteers from the previous time slot at the recovery table.

At first, all we were told to do was make sure those who donated blood sat for at least 10 minutes after donating, drank some water, and ate some food. This seemed like a simple enough job, so as people started coming over to the recovery table, I made sure to ask them to sit and have something to drink and eat.

The part that caught me off guard was the fainting. The volunteers we replaced left before they could pass on the warning that, “yes, people tend to faint after donating and you should probably watch out for that.” Sitting at the table, one of the donors fainted and slid right off his chair onto the floor – this definitely flustered me. Quickly, a Red Cross member came over and handled the situation, helping the man over to a bed to lie down.

Once that happened, someone from the Red Cross kindly explained to us what signs to look for when the donors come over to the table: the color of their faces, the color of their lips, beads of sweat on the forehead. From then on, we made it clear to the donors that they should let us know how they are feeling and if they start to feel faint or nauseous. Ironically, after we learned what to look for, no one else fainted.

As 2:45 came around, the registration desk stopped accepting donors. Volunteering during the last time slot, I knew no one was coming to replace us and that there were going to be more people needing recovery after 3. The other volunteers and I chose to stay until all of the donors finished donating, even though that required staying almost another hour after our time slot ended. We all agreed that it was the right thing to do, since no one from the Red Cross could watch the recovery table while working.

The decision to stay and volunteer longer, to me, embodied service-learning extremely well. I learn about the process of giving blood medically, but that was only half of the story. I also gave a special amount of meaning to my service because the other volunteers and I went above and beyond to serve others, not because we had to, but because we wanted to.

On Saturday September 6, 2014, Stockton hosted its semi-annual Day of Service, an event in which multiple clubs and organizations gather together and allow students to participate in community service on or off campus. After arriving at the campus event room at 8 am that morning, we were provided with breakfast, a free “Stockton Serves” t-shirt, and choices to volunteer with one of many clubs/organizations attending the event.

My friends and I chose to stay on campus with WaterWatch for our first Stockton event (outside of Welcome Week). WaterWatch is a club at Stockton that focuses on service and keeping our campus and the surrounding community trash-free and environmentally friendly. Being freshmen, we had no idea what WaterWatch was or what we were going to be doing that day. We soon found out that we would be split into groups of about 10 people each and assigned different sections of campus to clean. My friends and I were grouped together and told to clean the West Quad and the area surrounding the Campus Center. Our group then split into two even smaller groups to cover our assigned ground faster and more efficiently.

Surprisingly, there wasn’t that much trash to pick up – Stockton is lucky to have such a clean campus. The only minor issue we encountered was the many scattered cigarette butts around the gazebos and in non-smoking areas.

Even though it was an extremely hot morning, we finished cleaning campus and helping other groups at 11 am. Lunch was then provided for us in the Campus Center, where we held a small reflection session. What this service project meant to us was central to our discussion. To me, this service project was a way to make a difference by doing something simple. In fact, since the Day of Service, I notice the trash around campus more and don’t hesitate to pick it up and throw it out. All in all, the experience was worth the effort and was a rewarding way to serve Stockton.

As a future healthcare provider, it was to my advantage to attend Sorrel King’s one-time presentation of Josie King’s Story in the PAC on Thursday afternoon, October 2, 2014. The short dialogue session was only about an hour in length, but the presentation had incredible depth. Sorrel King talked about how her 18-month-old child died at John’s Hopkins University Medical Center due to medical errors – essentially, a breakdown in communication among the healthcare professionals.

Sitting in the audience, I listened to Sorrel describe what seemed to be a very pleasant, clam, and friendly stay at the hospital. She told of how she befriended many, if not all, of the staff on the particular floor that Josie was being treated on. At this point, I couldn’t have predicted that anything could possibly go wrong. Yet, Sorrel described how her own motherly intuition was overlooked. The doctors gave Josie methadone despite the fact that Sorrel had been told that she would not be given any. Sorrel could only wonder if this was a mistake or if the doctors simply new better.

Afterwards, she noticed that Josie looked unusually dehydrated. She sensed that something was wrong, but without the support of the medical team, Sorrel couldn’t do much. Eventually, Josie’s condition plummeted, going from ready to be discharged to minutes from death. I was shocked to hear of such an unpredictable turn of events.

The aftermath of the tragic event was more than just a grand settlement from Hopkins (in fact, Sorrel was adamant that she wanted to destroy the reputation of Hopkins, but her lawyer advised her to take the money and do something with it instead). Sorrel became a major influence in the field of health care, bringing awareness to the issues of miscommunication between health professionals. With the settlement money, Sorrel was able to help fund projects at hospitals all over the U.S., and has spoken at international conferences on patient safety.

This entire presentation brought something entirely new to my attention: medical errors are common, but are easily fixable. Perhaps because I have never been personally affected by a medical error, I never really thought about how serious their consequences are. What Sorrel talked about, however, was that these serious problems can easily be avoided with the implementation of preventative procedures, family involvement initiatives, and improved interprofessional communication. Overall, this presentation was eye opening and very interesting, and I will keep its message in mind as I continue on my track for a health care career.

On September 27, 2014, a group of honors students and I traveled to the Atlantic County Animal Shelter to provide our volunteer services. My friend Lauren and I both drove our cars to the shelter, transporting our other honors friends with us, and arrived Saturday morning at around 9 am. I had never volunteered at an animal shelter before, despite my love of animals, so I didn’t really have an understanding of what I would be getting myself into, but my experience there has been my favorite one yet.

As we walked into the shelter, there was a small group of other honors students all filling out the proper paperwork that the shelter required before getting to work, so we joined them. After signing off on the papers, we all got assigned to different jobs. I, along with two other friends (Matt and Drew), volunteered to clean the main floor. First, Matt and I took to sweeping – he used the broom and I held the dustpan, and I must say, our little team worked rather efficiently. After we swept an area, Drew would come follow-up with a good mopping. Once that was all done, I went over the whole floor with the vacuum, while Matt helped out by holding the extremely long power cord for me.

We finished cleaning pretty quickly, so my cleaning crew of three joined Lauren and Josh, who were taking care of the sick kittens in a separate room. Here came the easy job of holding the little kittens while their cages were getting cleaned out – that’s how I found out that there’s probably nothing cuter than a kitten sneezing. After a while of helping out in that room, my sinuses began to act up and my throat started getting itchy, so I figured some cat allergies were rearing their ugly symptoms. Once I started sneezing, I decided it’d be a good idea to get out of that room (my sneezing is a lot less cute than a kitten’s).

Next came the best part, the highest reward for our volunteering services: playing with the dogs! I am a dog lover, no doubts about it. Since I have my own dog at home and don’t get to see him everyday, seeing all these excited dogs and puppies tugged at my heartstrings. I can honestly admit that I tried my hardest to pet all of those dogs as well as I could through the chain link fence that separated us. Luckily, some of the dogs were put outside in a small fenced-in play area, so there were a few energetic ones we could freely pet and have a good time with.

Leaving the shelter was bittersweet in that I loved seeing all the animals and doing a good service for their caretakers, but I also saw so many dogs that I would have adopted in a heartbeat. I can only hope that they all get good homes. Thanks to my experience here, when I am in the position to have my own pet, I know it will be a shelter animal. All in all, it was extremely rewarding to work at the shelter, and I hope I get the chance to do more service work there in the future.