Operation Christmas Child
As a high school student, community service did not interest me in the least. I was in school from 8:00 am – 3:00 pm on weekdays with basketball practice from 3:30 – 7:00 pm in the afternoons, and from 8:00 am – 10:30 am on Saturdays. I was also in seven different clubs, ranging from National Honors Society to the Math Club to DECA. At that time, I was much more concerned with what I could do for myself than what I could do for others in the community. After a long week of school and basketball, the last thing I wanted to do was go use my Saturday to do 4 or 5 hours of community service. However, due to my membership with Beta Club and the National Honors Society, I had to do a minimal amount of community service each semester. You can be sure that I did the minimum hour amount and nothing more. As a young and immature high school student, I never saw the value in doing community service. It was a very selfish mindset to have, but that is how I was in high school when it came to serving the community.
During my time here at UNC-Charlotte, my attitude about community service has changed dramatically. As a member of the University Honors Program (UHP), I am required to complete two community service events each semester. Even during the first semester of my freshman year, I did not want to meet this requirement. However, as I did more and more community service I began to see the value. The turning point in my perspective came when I saw a graphic on Twitter that gave statistics on poverty around the world.
At first glance, I could not believe what I was reading. I always knew that the United States was comparatively better off than most countries in the world, but I was not aware that the gap was so large. I always knew that countries in Africa, Asia, and even South America contained what we label “3rd World Countries”, but I never pictured myself, a teenage kid in the United States of America, as having more money than most people in the world. I began to look up statistics about the world’s poorest and I was shocked. More than half of the world lives on less than $2.50 each day. In this country, that is such a trivial amount of money and yet people have to live off of that every day. That is one of the reasons that I now try to do so much community service. Between this powerful illustration and my experiences with volunteering through UHP, I realized that I have something to give back. I am obviously not the richest person in the world, but I try to give 10% of my earnings away. Moreover, I recognize that money can only solve so many issues so the most valuable thing I can give to others is my time.
My Operation Christmas Child (OCC) t-shirt is an important artifact because OCC is my favorite community service event I do each year. The first time I did the event was for the University Honors Program. Although it is no longer offered by UHP due to complaints about it being associated with a religion, I still go down to the warehouse every year before Christmas to help with the effort. This one community service event has helped me branch into other service events. I have worked with Habitat for Humanity, East Lincoln Community Center, Disability Services, Tutoring Services, and many other organizations and events.
Prior to this process of self-actualization, I would never do this much community service. I saw it as a waste of my time and I figured that someone else would fill the need. However, I am very happy with my decision to become more active in the community because it feels good to give back. In fact, a significant portion of my resume is the community service section and, surprisingly, this served as a major talking point in all of my interviews for accounting internships. I look forward to continuing to give back to the community. My goal is to do at least one act of community service every week. I hope that this process of self-actualization continues to help me move forward in this regard.
