“Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.” “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” This something and change for me is spending my time lending a hand to the community I was born into. If everyone does something the world becomes a better place. Committing my service to others and helping whoever is in need of help is one of my constant goals in life. Community service is important in my life because it has opened the doors for me to learn about the world around me along with who I am myself. Through the experience of volunteering from the local hospital, ambulance company, and church I have developed into the person who I am now. Without it, I wouldn’t have learned how to be the humble and giving person I am.
Everyone thinks the reason to volunteer is just to get the hours. However it’s not just the hours, it’s the hours you spend time with the people you volunteer with. Through volunteering at St. Agnes Medical Hospital, I have developed one of my characteristics, showing care towards the patient. As a proud junior volunteer in the ER Waiting Room, I help out with making charts, assist getting supplies for the nurses and registrars I work with, and lend a hand to patients who need blankets or ask for help. I was able to connect with some patients who had a rough time in the ER Waiting Room and wanted their results to come out from an MRI or a CAT Scan. This experience has helped me grow in my own uniqueness of myself―a compassion for each patient that comes in through the doors of the hospital. I was able to bring comfort to the patients in line at triage from the little girl crying to the impatient elderly man. From this, I found out that even talking to a patient, or giving them a blanket can make an impact in their time at the hospital. Time goes by faster and everyone in the Waiting Room is at ease. With the nurses and registrars, helping them with the charts makes everything flow from the work room to the ER to registration of the patient. To them it was like connecting a bridge in between. Handling the charts, allowed me to be able to have a relationship with the nurse and registrar I tend to work with. They have given their own experiences of being a volunteer and work in the hospital itself. I intend to continue this connection with others when I work in the medical field.
My brother is someone who I take care of not in a hospital but at home. He has a learning disability which makes him learn things at a slower pace. I help him with his school work and also teach him things that he doesn’t understand. Lending him both my knowledge and my hands has given me the patience I need towards people. He is also the reason I want to become a doctor.
Throughout the community, musically I also volunteer in the Peoples Church Orchestra every Sunday for the weekly services. I want to praise the Lord for everything I have been given and every opportunity along the way in helping people. Some people from the congregation come up to me saying that it is wonderful that I am using God’s given talent to me and giving praise to Him. Some have also said that the music I play have given them inspiration. Giving my music has given something from me to them: inspiration.
I also volunteer as a first responder with American Ambulance; being the one who is always ready in case of an emergency, and ready to support the life of people around me. I have volunteered my time in many events that was for cancer awareness like Relay for Life and Susan G. Komen’s Race for the Cure. I became involved with cancer awareness, due to my own auntie who passed away from cervical cancer. In this way, I can be able to become an addition into the people who can show the community that this is something everyone needs to know about. I want people to be aware that finding cancer before it develops in the body even further can help the person get treated faster. At these events, helping to also fundraise money for a cure is the goal to support research and experimentation on the cancer.
From the medical experiences through my volunteering and my own brother I have had, this has made me want to become a doctor. Not just any doctor, but a missionary doctor specializing in neurology or cardiology. I want to go to the impoverished places that do not have any medical attention. I want to give back what my own community has given me the opportunity. I want to see change in the lives of people so that they can pay it forward. Community service has given me the inspiration of helping more and more people as I possibly can in this lifetime. From opening the doors and giving me the opportunity to giving me a dream, volunteering has been an impact to my life. Everything that I am now is just a reflection of the things I have done in the past. I became the light to pull people out of their darkness by just doing a simple thing—helping.
Volunteering and community service is very important not only does it impact the person who gives a lending hand but the people around them who receive it. The community itself becomes one as a whole, with more and more people caring about each other. Interlocking the whole community with hands outstretched to help out the next. Not only will one learn about themselves such as I did about humbleness, compassion, caring, and patience, but the whole community.
“Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.” ~Edwin Hubbel Chapin
