Study Skills Essay, Research Paper

Study Skills Paper This service project was very helpful to me in many ways. It was hard to put aside the time to do it, but it was very beneficial in my future. Working is hard enough, but when you are doing it for free it’s worse. This was my attitude before I actually began to accomplish my service hours. After I handed the boxes to needy families, I began to realize the importance of my community service hours. I contemplated what I could do and decided to contact my friends dad. My friends dad works for an agency called American Friends Service committee. Its a Quaker based agency that helps needy families. We planned two days for me to work on November 27 and November 28. My friend also decided to come along for the ride. His dad was a little happy too also see him come along to help. I picked my friend up on Friday November 17 in his home in N.J. It was a little hard to come home from school on Thanksgiving and do community service but I’m glad I got it done. We arrived at his office in Philadelphia at around 11 o’ clock. His dad was on his lunch break so we had to wait an hour before we actually began to work. We decided to walk around the city to find a place to eat. We decided to go to South St. to get a bite to eat at Lorenzo’s Pizza. We arrived back at around 12 o’clock p.m. Josh’s dad took us down to the basement to show us what our job was. We took the elevator down the basement floor and walked into a huge room. The room looked almost like a factory without the high ceiling’s. We met a man named Mike who was in charge of packaging the clothes up. Josh’s dad went upstairs after we were fully introduced to Mike. Mike explained his job. He was to take clothes that had been donated to the organization, put them through a large machine that compressed the clothes into a large square and send them to homeless organizations. The machines were huge they almost went up to the ceiling. When the clothes came out they were in perfect squares that went directly into boxes. This process was necessary to transport clothes to needy organizations. Mike put me in charge of loading the boxes onto a truck. After the clothes were loaded into the machine and were compressed, I was to take the clothes and put them into a large box. After the box was perfectly packed with clothes I was to carry the box up a flight of stairs and out into the truck. Josh was assigned to load the machine with clothes until it was full. Mike himself would press the button while everyone stood clear of the large machine. We worked for a good hour before we took our first break. The break was not long however, it only lasted close to five minutes. On our break Mike told us that we might get the opportunity to help deliver the clothes to a near by homeless shelter. The load that we were packaging was larger than normal. He said the homeless shelter was in desperate need of a large quantity of clothes. We went back to work and continued working. While we were working Mike explained to us the satisfaction he gets when he works. He told us that he could get a job that makes more money, but he wishes to do a job that helps people in need. He was once homeless and understands how it feels. He tried to explain what it was like to not know where you next meal was, but it was hard for Josh and I to comprehend. His whole day was devoted to beg for change on South St., get enough money to buy a slice of pizza and sleep for the rest of the day. He’d wake up the next day and do exactly what he did the day before. He told Josh and I that he usually didn’t ever know what day it was. It took a man from American Friends Service committee to help him get a job. He was very thankful that this man helped him.

After hearing Mike’s story I was not afraid to break a sweat. If this man could overcome being homeless, I could at least overcome one day without being with my friends. The job was very boring but I though about the people I was helping the whole time. It would definitely be worth my while to see the smile on the faces of the homeless people. The job I had was not very easy. There were so many clothes that were compressed that it was pretty heavy. Then I had to carry the box to the truck and hand it to another man who loaded the truck. On Friday we got about three quarters of the truck done. On Saturday we completely loaded the truck. I was proud of myself when I looked back and realized that we had a big part in loading the truck. Josh and I both said that we had never worked so hard in out lives. Even at jobs that paid us, loading trucks was by far our hardest job. After we loaded the truck on Saturday we prepared to deliver the clothes. Mike explained to me that they usually just unload the truck, but they would make an exception for Josh and I. The homeless shelter agreed to let us distribute a box to a couple needy families. First, we unloaded the boxes in a small garage in an alley way. We formed a chain of arms that would make our work a little easier and faster. I took the box from Mike on the truck, gave it to Josh and he stacked the boxes in the garage. It didn’t take us very long to unload the trunk. The chain of arms almost like a conveyer belt proved to be a smart idea. Thanks to Mike. Mike was a very smart man, I couldn’t understand why he was homeless for such a long time. He told me he had a problem with alcohol after his wife left him in 1986. I enjoyed working with Mike, he was a very good man. I will admit, I was a little scared go into the homeless shelter. It wasn’t the cleanest and safest place to be. The people I walked by smelled, but it wasn’t their fault. Josh and I were told five door numbers to deliver clothes to. Most of the people were very thankful to receive clothes, one family however treated us very rudely. We didn’t take it very personally. The people were very thankful, they didn’t really mind the style of the clothes but they just wanted to have clothes to put on their shoulders. After we handed out the clothes, I felt very good about myself. Not only did I get my community service hours over with, but I also helped put clothes on a poor families shoulder. I didn’t realize the impact that the service would have on my life. A lot of us never get to experience first hand what it is like to be needy. I think I will never forget meeting Mike, he was such a wise man. Whenever I am worried about something meaningless, I’ll sit back and try to imagine not knowing where my next meal will be. Mike had to deal with that for almost eight years. Eight years is a long time! My worries are nothing compared to what his worries were. Loading boxes helped me to realize more about charity. I never knew exactly were my money or clothes were going so it sometimes prevented me from donating. Now being a first hand witness that charities actually do work, I might give more to them. Without people donating clothes, food and money most of the families in the homeless shelter would not have anything. Most of us have more then enough stuff to give away. Please donate! It does help!

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