Over mid-term break, I was lucky enough to participate in St. Bonaventure University’s spring service trip to East Kensington, Philadelphia, PA, for the second time. It was an absolutely amazing experience and I came back to campus feeling overwhelmingly blessed and humbled.
I attended this trip during the same break of my freshman year, but for very different reasons.
For my honors ethics class, each student was required to complete twenty hours of service to pass the class. Unfortunately, I had severely overcommitted myself to various on-campus engagements, as most freshmen do, and found it very difficult to complete twenty hours of service on or around campus. I also did not have a car, which made it even harder.
A bit later in the semester, I found out about our school’s trip to the St. Francis Inn in East Kensington.
Was that my first choice for my first ever spring break? ABSOLUTELY not.
But, I had a bunch of service to do and it wasn’t going to do itself, so, I signed up to go. I ended up dragging my best friend with me, and together we had a great week.
However, during our nightly reflections, most of the other volunteers and the trip coordinator repeatedly mentioned why they were here. Let’s just say they weren’t here for a class requirement.
I felt pretty left out as the week went on and thought about it for a while.
Did doing service for the hours instead of “just because” make me a bad person?
Newsflash: no. That’s stupid.
One thing I have come to learn and also constantly to tell others is that you don’t need a good reason to do service.
If you do service because you want to make a difference, that’s great. If you do service to get full credit in your PHIL-101 class, that’s great, too!
There is no bad reason to do service.
It does not matter why you do service, it matters how you do service.
If you do service because, say, a class requires it and you show up with a horrible attitude and are lazy, then you should probably re-evaluate yourself.
The perfect volunteer shows up ready to work, has a smile on their face, is ready to take direction, has a positive attitude and lots of enthusiasm. That’s what matters.
It doesn’t matter what made them show up, it matters that they did.
By emphasizing the importance of why people do service, you leave out people who do service because they are required to. In reality, all service done with hard work and a good attitude is positive service and can allow for change to occur in communities that need it.