Our service over the past few days
has been diverse: we worked in a soup kitchen giving food to anyone seeking a
hot meal on Saturday, we committed random acts of kindness on Sunday, and today
we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to give out to people in Penn and
Grand Central stations, and on the street. What I liked best about our service
on the street today and yesterday was that it was unlike anything I have done
before. At home in high school, I worked consistently at a food bank one
Saturday a month, with some other random volunteer experiences through school
organizations sprinkled in throughout the years. As a result, I thought that
doing community service was going to a specific place at a specific time and
performing a specific task. And once it was done, I went home and ate lunch and
went on with my day. What we have done these past two days has shown me that
service is accessible and it comes in many forms. “Doing service” does not
simply mean signing up for a time slot and then going on with your ceaseless activities
– it is a way of life, a job, a duty, even. The things we did this past weekend
were completely accessible to anyone, which is what I liked best about them.
Anyone can buy a homeless couple a cheeseburger and coffee and listen to their
story of they lost everything in a housing scam that left them on the streets.
Anyone can buy flowers and hand them out to strangers. And anyone can make a
sandwich. These are things that can be done on a daily basis. They are not time
commitments or things you have to schedule your day around like more organized
forms of service. While organized service is certainly beneficial and is great
to do, these things are small and seemingly insignificant, but they are
profound, as I have seen.
Today
while we were handing out sandwiches near Grand Central Station, we handed one
to a man who looked like he was not in the best situation. He walked away after
we handed it to him, but he kept looking back at us as we continued up the
street. He came up to us and explained that he was from Kenya and was on his
way to renew his passport. He told us he was a cancer patient, and that he
appreciated what we had given him. Though it sounds corny and cliché,
the smallest things can have a strong effect, both for someone who gives and
for someone who receives. What I have learned from this experience, from
listening to people and giving, is that everyone has a story, and people are
not at all what they appear to be on the surface. Homeless people are not
crazy, and you do not have to be homeless to deserve an act of kindness. We had
no way to know that the Kenyan man was a cancer patient in need of renewing his
passport, nor could we know that he would be grateful for what we gave him. I
have learned that I can be a part of making someone’s story improve, even by
doing things that are simple.
-Peter
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