Civic duty is something that every citizen of this country should want to complete. Service learning has given the students of Fayetteville State University the opportunity to serve the community through voluntary services. Through the Service Learning Center, I was able to help the community by volunteering at two locations. The first volunteering location was working with the American Heart Association (AHA). This was done by helping out at the Heart walk fundraiser. The rest of my hours were completed at the Second Harvest of Fayetteville. This service learning opportunity showed me what it was like to work at a food bank.The AHA is an organization that is dedicated to fighting heart disease and strokes.
There are many people that go through the complications of heart disease and one of the biggest things to remember is that the disease is nondiscriminatory. Should it decide to inflict itself on someone that lives under the poverty line, it could cause financial havoc and unnecessary stress on an already stressed heart. That’s where the AHA steps in. The organization has many fundraisers that bring in money for people who cannot afford procedures. It isn’t much of a surprise that African Americans lead the nation in heart disease (Harvard Health publishing). When you look at the locations that African Americans occupy in the country you can really see the effects that segregation had on the nation.
What I mean by that is you can see that African Americans were pushed into low income areas and this led to poor living conditions as well as limited access to medical help. This is why the foundation is so crucial to the country. While volunteering for the AHA, I was tasked with helping set up for one of their annual heart walks that raise funds for the organization. This included setting up tables for activities before, during, and after, the heart walk, walking the routes at 6am to set the mile markers for the walkers, as well as passing out waters to the walkers/runners. While there I was amazed at how many people there donated because they had lost someone to heart disease as well as how many kids were there that had some kind of heart condition.
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The kids were the best part. There were some was one there that needed a heart transplant, not walking of course, and she was very happy and always smiling. That made my day while volunteering there.The other site that I volunteered at was Second Harvest Food Bank of Fayetteville. There, they work to deliver food to those in need. While there I asked where they receive all the items from and was told that they receive it from local business as well as people that donate to the cause. I was amazed at how much food and even personal hygiene items they had. The warehouse was a lot bigger than I imagined it would be and rightfully so as they needed all the space they could get to house everything.
When I first walked in for the morning shift, I was behind a few people to check in for volunteer work and was kind of shocked when I was how many people had arrived an hour or so BEFORE the shift had started. I was led to the sorting room where we would check dates for dry/canned goods, wipe them down, and then sort them into what was needed vs what was to be thrown out. I do have to say, however, that while I was happy to see how much food was donated, I was kind of appalled at how much was just out right thrown away. I only mention this because if I had donated those items I would be a little upset to see that things I had donated to people in need being put into a trash bin. I kept wondering “why in the world don’t they just give the food to the homeless shelters around?”. Granted most of the things being thrown out were junk foods like chips, snack cakes, and carbonated water, all the while keeping sodas and cookies. It made little sense to me that they would be so picky about the items they kept and which ones they threw out.
The foods being thrown out aside, I was happy to help an organization with such a noble cause. I was a teacher for the last 5 years before coming back to school, and seeing firsthand what hunger can do to a child’s test scores is crazy. Not to mention that some of those kids are embarrassed to say that they don’t have food. I had a student that once told me their favorite part of coming to school was the fact that they got breakfast and lunch while there. That breaks your heart to hear and he was a good student, for the most part. Doing a bit of research, I found that they have backpack programs to send kids home with good food as well as a few comfort snacks in there as well. That made me happy to see that they do that.
Not only do they send food home with kids, they also have mobile pantries that are supported by local businesses where people can come and retrieve what they need. The opportunities that the Office of Civic Engagement and Service Learning afforded me were amazing. The feeling you get when you finish knowing that, even though your work might be little, it makes a difference in someone’s life. I enjoyed volunteering for the organizations and will more than likely continue to help these organizations out in the future, even if it’s not a class requirement.
