Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Reflections from Bailey (St. Leo's) and Mia (St. Joseph's)

I have learned so much during my first day here at the Agape Service Project. In the morning we packed up in vehicles and headed out to neighborhoods to collect food donations from local residents. I have never gone door-to-door before, so that was a completely new experience. I found that   once you take the initiative to do something right in a community, you will find that people are willing to help. For example, one of the houses that I visited today decided to give us 14 boxes of organic cereal. I was astonished that people would give so much to a necessary cause.

Later in the day, after lunch, we packed up and headed out again, but this time we traveled the local grocery stores to host food drives. Specifically, my group ran a food drive at the Grocery Outlet in Bellingham. The beginning of the food drive was really tough. Unfortunately, in approximately the first 45 minutes we only received one box of Fruit Loops cereal. As time went on, people began to donate and amazingly we ended up completely filling the back of our chaperone's car.  In that experience, I learned that with teamwork, time, and relentless effort, you can accomplish anything. In this case, successfully collecting enough food.

As you can see, it is worth doing service to help people that are less fortunate. Taking time and helping someone is really important because it will teach the person or people you help to do the same for others. Even in this short amount of time I have spent at the Agape Service Project, I have learned so much and I can't wait for the days to come.

                                                                        Bailey D.

        Today I learned that a few people might say no to a donation but there's always more who say yes. I've learned that even if someone might say no you can't know what difficulties they themselves face. I also heard a very touching story from one of our counselors that made me realize there ARE others in this world other than us. All of us found this out after a dinner the a half of our whole group disclosed what they were doing in the kitchen while the other group (the one I was part of) was playing outside. I have to admit I was a little suspicious when the counselors told my half of the group to leave our plates on the table after a great dinner of spaghetti and rolls. What we found out was that the group that was in the kitchen had prepared our whole meal and had to eat beans, rice and tortillas. After this exercise I realized we spend a lot of time talking care of #1 instead of the people that really need attention. This camp has really made me think about others and not myself.

                                                                                                        Mia A.

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