wward1's Travel Journals

wward1

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  • 25 years old
  • From Florida, United States
  • Currently in United States

My Community Service

When I think of community service, I think of something that someone does for the community that not only helps the community but makes the person doing the service feel good. An example of my community service would be in the summer when I coach kids in Jacksonville Universities Upward Bound Softball, Track, and Spades. Upward Bound (UB) is a program for aspiring high school students that want to get ahead and prepare for college. At the end of the summer UB has an Olympic Ceremony were kids from UBs all over Florida meet and do a variety of events, everything from spelling bee’s to billiards to swimming and basketball. This is my favorite part of community service, because not only does the staff tutor the student during the program we get to watch them develop and make friends throughout the 6 week program. These kids aren’t always from the best areas and sometimes aren’t necessarily the most college ready individuals, so it makes me feel good to show them that if I am making it so can they. The Olympic Ceremony is something that is frequently talked about, but teacher and the rest of the staff have the constantly remind them that if they don’t have above a 2.0 in week 5 when grades come out then they cannot participate in the Olympics or the Mr. & Ms. Upward Bound pageant. It is a good feeling when kids that graduate from the program come back and tell how much the staff helped them succeed not only in the classroom, but in life.

Journal 6

Ecuador Guayaquil, Ecuador  |  Mar 24, 2008
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Day six, Today we head over to Fundacion Justo y Necesario from what I hear this place has everyone up in arms, because it’s not like the other places that we are working at. My roommates say that it’s a nice day school in a very nice area and the kids aren’t in any type of hardship. We get on the bus and our supervisor- John tell us a little bit about the place we are going. He tells us how this school is basically a school for kids whose parents are maids or butlers, about middle class, for high upper class people. The kids have to wear uniforms and they have air conditioned classrooms and buildings. My first impression of the place was that it was really nice (nicer than the hotel we are staying at and in a better area). I don’t really feel like they need us however it’s not a sweat shop if you don’t have to work then don’t I helped paint, because I figured this place was probably like some of the other places we worked at few years ago and look at it now. We painted a few classrooms then ate and watched a presentation about Ecuador, after that we went and played with the kids. I’ve never seen such a unanimously loved sport, until I realized how much everyone loves soccer here. The kids had some kind of recess and we ended up playing a huge game of soccer. I still can’t believe how every kid could play and was better than average. I actually used some of the trick that Richard at Ines Chamber showed me and scored about four goals. The kids were very happy to have us play with them and even though their school might not have needed our help at least we made an impression on the kids. We headed back to the hotel and got our Spanish lesson for the day and headed to the casinos, which are similar to the ones in the U.S., because they had a lot of security and treated people how come a lot very well.
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