By J.D. Eddy, Editorial Editor
Volunteering, while quite stressful, had an impact on how I conduct myself recently. The main trait tested when I volunteered over the summer was my patience. Working with kids makes you question things about yourself, especially whether you want to have kids in the future.
Now, I still want to have kids, but I know how much of a challenge it will be when I eventually do.
I have only brought up this to get the only negative out of the way immediately. Volunteering at Project Transformation in Muskogee changed the way I view volunteer jobs.
When I was working in Muskogee, most of the kids that we had were impoverished. The main goal was to give them somewhere to go over the summer, but also to try to improve their reading levels instead of letting them sit at home doing nothing. While most children would rather do this, it amazed me how many kids were excited to read every day.
I was the recreation coordinator, so I was the students’ favorite teacher because I gave them a break from reading. They enjoyed it, but at the same time, I tried to instill the positive things that I learned from my years of playing sports: qualities like hard work, leadership (there were a lot of students that had this trait already), respect and basic sportsmanship.
There were other positions like the reading coordinator. The children had different reading levels from A to Z to show the difficulty of each book they read. There was a rewards system for the children that ranged from free food to getting a day at the waterpark in Muskogee.
The art coordinator’s job is self-explanatory; she had the kids do art projects each day that improved their hand-eye coordination and their writing skills. She accomplished this. Every kid, even the kindergarteners, improved their handwriting during the summer.
The STEM/science coordinator Cooper was responsible for teaching these kids the basics of anatomy, chemistry and any topics related to the scientific field. These were basic lessons such as how lungs operate, shooting rockets, making ice cream and teaching them about chemical reactions like baking soda volcanos. These children all learned the basic lessons in science, and they thought science was fun.
Now, I know it seems like most of what we made these children do is schoolwork, but we had fun things for the kids each day, such as recess in the morning two days a week and then having recreational activities in the afternoon.
This job taught me a lot. Just being there for these kids is a big thing. Most of them did not have positive male role models in their lives. Having the STEM coordinator and me around was meaningful. The kids would latch on and give us notes that would say things like, “Thank you for being such a good person to me.” One of the kids wrote Cooper and me a note that said, “Can you adopt us?” She and her little brother had lost their dad at a young age, and their home life wasn’t the greatest.
This experience showed me that, no matter who you are, you can make a difference in someone’s life. No matter how small you think your contributions are, volunteering for an organization like Project Transformation can change the way you view certain aspects of life: where other people come from and the reasons why they act the way they do.
Volunteering isn’t for everyone, but if you have the heart for it, it can be a positive experience for you and everyone around you.