Men Need To Volunteer More -written reflection one

Grant Guenther

          As it has been three weeks since my last post on this blog, the viewers need an update I think! "Best Friends" is cooperating nicely with my team and I. The problem has been that owner of the organization has been on sick leave for close to six weeks now, so setting up visits has been difficult, but the owner is back now! We started our weekly visits this Friday, October 2nd, where we finally met the owner of the organization. He was nice and passionate for his organization as he encouraged us to meet as many patients as possible. 

This is where we sung songs all gathered around the
piano. The middle section is where eeryone was dancing.

          During the time my group and I were at the organization it was singing time and time to talk with patients individually. The singing was a great time! It is absolutely astonishing how elderly people can have trouble remembering all kinds of things, but once they are given a song they can rattle it off with no trouble; it turns out that the volunteers are the ones that need the song books rather than the patients. While singing, some of the people got up to start dancing while holding hands including me. The energy in the room was remarkable.

          Meeting some patients individually was my favorite part of the visit. I talked to Dan and Paul the most. Paul was a 93-year-old veteran who participated in World War Two at a very young age. He was comfortable sharing about his experiences in the war, but most of his thoughts were how terrible and scary the war was. Paul was a trucker his whole life, starting at age 14. He lived a life of traveling around the country, causing him to become detached from his family. He still says he doesn’t know where his parents are even though he is 93 so it would be a miracle if they were still alive. His children take turns having Paul stay with them, making a life of travel for Paul. He remarked that he loved “Best Friends” because it gave him something to do and new people to meet. Overall, he was a very healthy looking 93-year-old, and his dementia must short-term because he remembered his past vividly, yet repeated stories often.

This is the area that I talked toDan. Notice
how there are plenty of chairs and games in the back.

           Dan was an interesting man also. He did not seem very old, and was in tremendous shape. He had great hearing, was very vocal, and had a great sense of humor. He made an eye-opening comment of “if you take life serious all the time, then you are living wrong.” That quote explains his constant joke-making. Growing up, he was a hard-working man whose goal was to support his family and he did just that. His first wife died many years ago, and he is now remarried. He comes to “best friends because it gives him something to do while his wife is till at work. He made the comment of “I love meeting the people who are patients here, but I love meeting the young volunteers and the male ones because I can relate to them more.” This comment caused me to really think. Talking to these two men was eye-opening and fun, but gave me a great essay topic for school too!

           For this class, one of our main assignments is to write an argumentative essay on a subject related to our experiences at our chosen organization. Dan and Paul gave me an idea for my argument. Both of them were interesting men who shared their stories openly, but had no males to share their stories with. You could be saying that they can share their stories with females, but that is not the same to them. They want people they can relate with to tell these stories however, there are few males volunteering at the organization. At “Best friends” there are 32 patients with 12 men and 20 females which is 37.5% males, yet only 18 out of 88 volunteers are males which is 20%. This shows that there are not enough male volunteers to accompany the male patients.

          I thought about why this situation is occurring as I threw around reasons like men have more high maintenance jobs and a need to support their family. As I looked nation-wide, the stats are similar but a little less skewed. Nationwide last year, 22% of males volunteered and 28.3% of females which shows that males still do not volunteer as much as females. I feel very passionately that men need to volunteer as much as women, so will focus my argumentative essay on the subject. See you in a couple of weeks, when my essay will be complete and I will fill everyone in on our next few visits.