I believe that if you want to see a change in this world,
then it has to start with YOU! I
remember the first time I ever was involved in community service; it was at a
recreation center. I recall entering
this red brick covered building, but all I can hear was shouting when I walked
through the double doors. As I
proceeded, there was a massive amount of small children running around in the
gym. They were screaming at the top of
their lungs of excitement. “What am I
doing here?” I thought to myself. I was
fifteen years old and being with children wasn’t an excitement to me.
As a group, we started arranging games for the children to
play. The children were separated into
different sections of the gym. I was
standing on the outside of one the two lines that were made for the activity
and I felt this gentle small soft touch on the palm of my hand. When I looked over, it was a little girl with
red shorts and white sleeveless top with these cute little roses on them. She just blankly stared at me as she reached
for my hand. So, I held her hand anyway
and escorted her back to the line. As
time passed, new games were played and children rotated to a different
activity. Throughout the day, I started
to have a trail of little girls following me everywhere in the gym. Why? I
had no clue. All they wanted to do was
to stay attached to my hip. I resulted
in just playing little games with them in a little circle, my circle continued
to grow. As our instructors announced it
was time to depart, the children hugged me so tight that I literally dropped
to the brown laminate floor. At that
moment, I felt this weird feeling in my heart.
It was a beautiful. It took quite
some time to get the girls off of me with help from the instructors. As I walked away, tears shed from some of the
girls. Suddenly, I didn’t want to leave.
As we were escorted back into the yellow bus, my instructor
asked me, “Jessica, How do you feel after this experience?” “Great!” I
shouted. I was actually speechless, but
yelled something out, out of respect. In
reality, it made me realize that these children enjoyed my company. They loved to have someone to play around
with him or her for so long. They longed
for LOVE! It was that moment when I
realized giving was one of the best feelings I ever had in my life! So, I persevered through adulthood to fit community
service/volunteering in my hectic schedule to help people who have that void in
their life. It is the best memory they
will ever have. In return, I don’t want
anything, but just to see the smiles on their faces!
