Reflective Essay: The Importance Of Volunteering To The Community

As a kid, I spent a lot of time in youth group with local members of the community while learning about morals and ethics. However, I never quite understood the impact of a community reaching out and helping others. I only had heard things such as “it builds character” and “a little effort goes a long way.” To be honest, at the time I was a lot more focused on getting good grades and doing well in athletics, rather than doing volunteer work. That is until high school started. we were required a copious amount of volunteer work, hence my realizations of the importance of volunteering. In this period of life, I learned that everyone at some point should partake in volunteering for the community. It allowed me to grow as a person and opened my

Destroyed from little to no sleep, I crawled out of my tent, which was occupied by my neighbor and close friend, Ryan Langaker. We packed up supplies and drove west to the work site where we began the process of building a home. It would be nothing impressive, a small 150 square foot home big enough to tightly house a family of four. Throughout the day, we laid down a foundation and began the construction of walls. After eight hours of constant work, we had pitched up the four walls and started on the roof. That concluded our first day of community service and I was obliterated by the blaring heat and relentless sand, digging its way into every article of clothing I was wearing.
Day two and three was followed by even more sweat-inducing work. I have an intense hatred of feeling dirty, and this was possibly the number one factor that killed me. As we also had limited access to showers and were going to bed without any bathing or showering. We spent eight hours those next two days chasing the completion of the home. After the roof was put up, we insulated the house, wrapped it in chicken wire, applied stucco to the walls, and finished the interior of the home. However, this was not the end of the