Service Day #5: The Good Samaritan Center

 Service Day 5

Today was such an amazing day! We were granted the opportunity to volunteer at The Great Samaritan Center for the third day this week, and over the course of all our visits, the group was able to gain a vivid image of what serving alongside selfless individuals and how much our minor contributions may have made a major contribution to a less fortunate community.

Today we were separated into about four groups to help clean different parts of the warehouse. In the food pantry, we wiped down walls, tables, and food racks. In the personal care closet, we reorganized over 15 shelves of unorganized baby diapers, bottles, cleaning supplies, shampoos, conditioners, lotions, etc.

Other groups were assigned to clean bathrooms, office areas, the clothing closet, the “Free” storage bins and pickup liter around two blocks surrounding the GSC.

Though we did not see the direct impact on the community, the idea that we were able to help clean, organize, and do prep work for future projects took a lot of pressure off the few employees of GSC and created more opportunities for the GSC to be a beneficiary to the community.

This experience relates to the Inclusion aspect of our theme because it shows how the back end work that is done or that may seem unimportant is really the key to all of the accomplishments that are presented to the public. In regards to the marginalized population’s aspect, we were able to work with and both directly and indirectly benefit multiple communities that are typically left out. It is an outcome that shows that one should consider all aspects of any service project because regardless if the outcome isn’t instantly noticeable, the job is completed, someone else doesn’t have to do it and no effort is ever a waste of time or energy. Someone is appreciative of the completed task and there is always someone who is impacted from the minor yet major service contributed.  

The most memorable moment of today was being able to have a personal reflection on all the great things we aided the GSC in accomplishing, as well as having the opportunity to shop in their thrift shop NUTS “Newly Used Things for Sale” and seeing some of the items that we sorted earlier this week out for sale. Being able to humble ourselves and realize the value in a majority of the items we sorted was awarding. As a bonus, we were able to purchase some of those sorted items at a volunteer discount on top of the normal sale.