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This is me (and my brother) Delivering our
non-perishable food and hygiene items to the
charity of my choice in my first service learning project.
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There are the people who only care about
themselves and the people that want to help others in the community. I am
one of those people who gets joy out of helping others because it is
fun, rewarding, and teaches me more then any class could ever teach. The
life-lessons I have learned through service are lessons that I will carry with
me for the rest of my life. I have learned things like how to communicate
better, why helping others is important, that others are not as lucky as I am
to be so healthy and privileged in this world, and too many other things to go
on naming. I was ecstatic when I figured out that in my college class we will
be doing service learning as we pair up with organizations. Although this is
not my first service learning go around, I am equally excited to work
with others.
In my college communications class everyone must
work for a service organization; my service organization is called "Best
Friends" which deals with adults with dementia. Dementia is
defined by Dictionary.com as “a chronic or persistent disorder of the mental processes caused
by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes,
and impaired reasoning.” So basically, they just
have trouble thinking and remembering. When I found out that I got
paired up with “Best Friends” I was both excited and nervous. This organization
was my top choice but not for reasons you would think. It was not my top choice
because it looked the most fun or easiest, but because I thought I could learn
the most from this organization. Helping adults with dementia will be a whole
new experience to me because I have never really interacted with adults before
in community service. I want to be part of these adults’ lives to get a whole new perspective on elderly people and to help them in whatever way I can,
even if it just means talking to them and playing games with them.
This blog will reflect my personal experiences as well as our group experiences
after the visits. I will try my best to include pictures of what it is like
there, but it is a challenge. Most of the people in the building do not allow
pictures to be taken or posted of them do to security reasons so it is tough. That
being said, there is also not much information on the center nor social media results on the organization either. It is one of
those places where you have to make an appearance to learn what it is or truly
about. If I had to guess, I would say the lack of websites and social media for
this organization is due to the older workers who are not as tech savvy as the
younger generation. Some of the only things I did find are that the organization deals with patients who have different severities of cases with demential and that it is a faith-based organization. Even though the little information hinders me, it just makes
it so I have to display information in words more so rather the media. Challenge
Accepted! For this blog post I have used the pictures from www.kentucky.com which you can find at this url (url)
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The group of patients listening to a guitar player
(much like how they listened to the singer when
we were there!). This is the gathering room for patients.
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On Friday, my group and I went to the
site at which we will be volunteering for the first time. It was a very
large building with many organizations. Once in the building
we all had to fill out information forms
in case something happened to us under their
watch. While filling out the forms we got ice cream, then after we were
explained what we will be doing with the patients. The way it works is that every
week will be assigned a patient to take care of that day; before
we go into meet them we will receive a short bio about them.
During our time there we will provide elderly assistance to our individual, entertain
them, and get to know him/her better. Now that we knew our job, we went in to meet everyone. As we walked into the room the elderly faces lit up because they
were so excited. The 25 patients were filled with joy to see young adults like us;
most likely because every patient and worker was elderly so it was a change in
scenery. One person in my group then introduced the patients to his
beautiful voice which they loved so much that we spent the hour we were
volunteering doing sing along songs. This is where my first realization of how
some adults struggle at later ages; as we opened the song books the
lady next to me was looking for the right page with her book both upside
down and backwards. It was so sad! I had to help her find the page only to find
out that she had a beautiful voice. Once singing was over we said our goodbyes
and headed out.
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Two "Best Friends" holding hands as they
participate in activities.
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The people in which we are
helping in this organization are of older age, but have tremendous stories to
share. The severity of dementia ranges from individual to individual; some
are in early stages of dementia so are almost 100% normal, but others
have noticeably severe cases. I want to be part of this organization. An
organization that makes mentally ill people feel at home and safe 24 hours each
and every day. I feel that elderly people do not get as much care
because they aren’t cute kids or anything, but I want to show these people that
they are cared about and loved just as anyone else in this world. Hopefully I
can make some Best Friends in the process as well. I am so excited to be paired
with “Best Friends” as my service-learning organization! The first visit only
made me more excited to be a small part of their lives, but I have no doubt they will influence my lives even more.
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