Reflective Essay: My Experience With The Missionaries Of Volunteer

Volunteer work, while a requirement for all Florida high schools, is also an opportunity for growth and change in a person. It is through volunteering that people can find a passion for helping others, a newfound happiness within themselves, and change themselves based on this discovery. While nothing as drastic as that happened to me, I came to find, pleasantly, that volunteering was an opportunity to learn more about about myself and, more importantly, others. The service I did, with the Missionaries of Charity especially, felt very personal as I was a bearer of something good and necessary for the disadvantaged. I feel as if I have grown, ironically, thanks to my original indifference. My attitude and my actions gave me a chance to realize that right now I have in front of me, more blessings than some people have in an entire lifetime and

I have always been told that I am a privileged person, but it is often easy to dismiss as I have never really experienced poverty. My work at the Missionaries of Charity, however, gave me some perspective. My most significant experience while volunteering was when I first drove into the Missionaries of Charity neighborhood, as it was littered with men and women sleeping on sidewalks with little more than blankets and the clothes in their backs. Poverty could be seen everywhere: on the streets, in neighboring areas, and even in the residence of the sisters of the Missionaries of Charity. Shockingly, while I was helping with selfish motives— to finish my required service hours for school— I realized that for many of these people, this was the only way they would be eating today. That this simple privilege, which I had become so accustomed to, was denied to people who needed it more taught me to stop focusing on the fact that I could go home soon and actually take a look at real people around