Richard Black
Rotation B
Ms. Duquette
12/01/12
AP Gov
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| SOUP KITCHEN! |
Community Service: Narrative Style
Naturally, when I first started volunteering I was less than excited, as I, like most teenagers, thought I could be doing something more useful with my time, which I know realize is just a lie, I never have anything useful to do. At first I was of course nervous, as based on past knowledge of a soup kitchen, I expected to see druggies and rapists everywhere, who are violent and will most likely kill me for no good reason. Thank god, I was way off. My first day started off by me doing a simple task, one that involved quite a bit of interaction, which didn’t help my already nervous mindset. I had to go table to table with my friend, Jason Kalafut, and ask people what they wanted to eat based on an A-E menu they all receive. The system worked by me taking each table’s orders, bringing them to a lady, as she called out the letters to people who put the selected food on the trays, which were then carried out by people to each table. Scared, I proceeded to do my job, and realized that actually all families I would be serving are actually families; they don’t let the homeless at this particular location. I originally thought this job would be simple, until I realized that about 50% of the families there spoke no English. It was a pain in the ass. I managed to make this work, however, by the families catching on after making an ass of myself saying “Excuse me?” so many times, and they pointed at the item they want.
Next Friday, feeling more comfortable with the job, I learned that we would have to go to the downtown Phoenix location, the one which the lady informed us is where the “dangerous” people are. My wimpy mind set kicked in, and I began to fear the day again. When we arrived there, I learned that I would not actually be interacting with anybody, but that I would be washing dishes instead and my fear went away once again. This was one of the more fun nights for me, as I found washing dishes to more fun, as I didn’t encounter any problems and I actually felt pretty useful. By now, I began to realize this wasn’t a waste of time, and began to start having fun, but that’s not to say I was excited to continue, as each Friday I never felt like actually going, but afterwards I usually think “That wasn’t so bad!”
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| Bitchy Girl |
The next Friday we were back at the family location, where I got the job of putting trays of food onto other trays for the servers to carry them out to the tables. This job was extremely boring, as I was lucky enough to have a young girl bitching at me when I didn’t take the trays from her fast enough. I felt useless doing this job, it seems like the servers could do this themselves, and that I just obtained this job because all of the “good” jobs were taken. My friend Jason was off talking to some girl (he was lucky enough to get the waiter job again) so I had to stand there and feel useless and bored. Fun stuff!
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| Doing Some Mad Table Work |
On Monday it was our last day, a feeling that I felt pretty good about, but we warned it would be one of the biggest nights, due to channel 10 being there filming some turkey carving contest. We walked in to find a massive amount of volunteers, somewhere between 30 and 40 were there. Due to this overwhelming number of people, several “trash” jobs were created to keep them all busy, there were the normal jobs of being cooks, servers, and waiters, but now there were also table re-setters, drink re-fillers, dish washer, etc. All the good jobs were taken quickly as I expected, so Jason and I ended up gaining the job if drink re-fillers, that is we refill the pitchers of juice and water on each tables per request or if the tables are being reset. Today felt weird, as there was some unknown live band playing weird covers to songs such as Billie Jean or Stayin’ Alive, and a table set up in the corner with cameras and well-dressed personnel. Our job didn’t kick in until about 10 minutes in, when I started patrolling the tables looking for pitchers low on juice or water, with juice always being the one that needed to be refilled. After several hours (it seemed a lot longer) the establishment finally shut down, with an estimated 400 people being there tonight, but it certainly didn’t seem like that much. Relived to finally be completed, I left happily, and I told myself I would write this paper the next weekend, which of course I did not. Looking back on it now, it didn’t seem so bad, but it’s certainly not something I could do every weekend, but it was fun, and I enjoyed it while it lasted with the exception of the night I got the useless job of putting trays on other trays, but I’m glad I chose this for my community service hours, it was something interesting and different.
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| Mad Table Work |
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| Asking People Whats Up |
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| TEAMWORK! BOOM! |
Civic Duty and YOU!
Civil service is an important component of any community. It represents the trust of the people and the pride they take for their community to the point where they are willing to sacrifice something to do it. You might even say it’s their civic duty to service their community in some form, whether it be through a paying job, a donation, volunteering, whatever it may be, at one point or another most people end up contributing somehow. The sacrifice the people give up is one of great important: time, as no civic duty, in fact anything, is done without the sacrifice of time, but only those willing to spend hours out of their day to help or do good are those truly fulfilling their civic duty.
Civic duty is defined as “the responsibilities of a citizen” (freedictionary), that is, it’s something that citizens must do if they plan on staying in a community, whether it be required or just voluntary, it’s what makes communities function the way they do, civic duties of one citizens act off the civic duties of another, it’s what gives us water, food, and services. The responsibilities proposed by the definition has a wide variety of what they could be, for a responsibility is more of an opinion of each individual, for some it could be getting a job, simply doing a good deed every once in a while, volunteering to help the less fortunate (such as what I chose to do), donating to a certain charity or organization, anything that is community related. A popular example of civic duty would be jury duty, which is sort of a draft that requires citizens to participate on the jury of a trial, as jury duty is described as “Obligation of a citizen to serve on a jury when called. One of the highest duties of citizenship” (Business Dictionary) Jury duty symbolizes civic duty as it is a duty performed by citizens of a community to serve that particular community.
A variety of things can be attributed to civic duty; a Fireman’s civic duty is to keep citizens safe from burning buildings, and to rescue those incapable to escaping from dire situations. A police officer’s civic duty is protect citizens and enforce the law within their community, even small jobs such as a waiter has a civic duty of serving people to hungry people who request it at an establishment without causing trouble doing so. It’s this civic duty of particular job that keeps a community from being corrupt and useless, and allows for a safe and efficient system to blossom if everybody follows and abides by their civic duty, which is quite impossible for 100% of a society to pull off. Paying jobs aren’t the only things that could qualify for civic duty, volunteering is a major component of an individual’s responsibility. Volunteering at a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, anything that involves helping those who could be considered less fortunate and in need of some sort of assistance keeping their life intact is a perfect example of helpful civic duty. These volunteers have a very simple duty, and that is to treat the people that they are supposed to help with the utmost respect, and don’t abuse their power while treating these people. Many could incorporate their real profession to better assist those who need it, such as a doctor volunteering to help the homeless with their medical needs. Some people may even think civic duty is optional, and some may even debate this, but in reality it’s more like “most Americans are either too busy, distracted, trusting or just too ignorant to get involved.” (American Thinker)
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| Just Cleaning Some Stuff, No Big Deal |
Civic duty is a loose term, and is actually often used to describe the responsibilities of everybody in America, not just in a certain town or city, an example would be this article talking about how uninformed or confused voters should stay home on election day, it being their “civic duty” to become better informed, or simply don’t vote (ABC). This article may seem extreme, but it’s a good representation of how important civic duty is, and how it can be different enforced on different people. A person’s civil service is one of the most important aspects of America, it’s what keeps important jobs honorable and volunteering reliable, it keeps the homeless and less fortunate safe and generally make society function like a well-oiled machine. Without this “code” that people abide by our country would be in a pit of chaos, with no individuals, with the exception of the few honorable and trustworthy people, actually performing the services they are supposed to do.
Works Cited
Citizen, By Bargain. "Is Civic Duty Optional?" American Thinker. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. <http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/is_civic_duty_optional.html>.
"Civic Duty - Definition of Civic Duty by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia." Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. <http://www.thefreedictionary.com/civic duty>.
"Jury Duty Definition." BusinessDictionary.com - Online Business Dictionary. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. <http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/jury-duty.html>.
Stossel, By John. "Maybe It's Your Civic Duty Not to Vote - ABC News." ABCNews.com - ABCNews.com: Breaking News, Politics, World News, Good Morning America, Exclusive Interviews - ABC News. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. <http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5985719&page=>
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| Checking for Optimal Cleanage |
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| Homeless Food Line |
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| Hella Busy |
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| All the volunteers |
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| ZOOM! |
Experience
My experience volunteering was an interesting one, as I originally thought that I would dislike this as much as possible, it just seemed like a waste of time, but as I reflect on it I realize that I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I enjoyed it because I felt like I was actually making a difference (with the exception of the third trip where I got a useless job), most of the tasks I was giving was fun, and the addition of a friend definitely made it a lot more fun due to the fact that if he wasn’t there, all I would know is my mom. While I didn’t exactly like it at the time, I feel like this was a good choice for me to perform part of my civic duty, and I feel like I helped give these needy families some happiness when I did the more important jobs such as waiting or refilling the drink pitchers.
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| Just another day |
During the three days that I had actual important jobs (the other day being a job that was basically just put food trays on other trays like 10 inches apart from each other), I believe I helped because I provided service for these people, without being rude and being quite friendly, and being tolerate of them despite not all of them speaking perfect English. I helped because I provided these people with access to food and drinks in some form of a task, and provided it with a friendly smile (that sounds crazy cliché eh?). I feel like I provided happiness and helped make a possible uncomfortable experience to the soup kitchen a somewhat more comfortable and friendly one, one that they wouldn’t feel embarrassed about attending. I know that probably sounds bad, but think about it, it’s not exactly the happiest day when you realize you can’t feed your family what they need, or being barely able to afford to. These people came to this establishment to feed their families, something they could barely afford to on their own, and I feel like I did a good job conveying this message by not causing any problems, and by taking their orders with speed and refilling their drinks without having to be ask to make them feel like they aren’t in the slum or anything, and that they are being treated fairly.
The implications volunteering in a civil service way is a helpful one, I suppose it could depend on what type of volunteering that you perform, but for the most part they are always helpful (Like, I guess you could volunteer for organizing a bull fight or something, and that’s not helpful). The general conclusion that can be made about civic duty volunteering would be that it helps those less fortunate, whether it is in a medical way, or serving them food. These don’t exist to a much larger extent, as those who volunteer and don’t put any effort into it are not fulfilling the civic duty they signed up for when they volunteered the time to do so. It’d be impossible to make people perform their civic duty if they really don’t want to, which is what I witnessed a few times during the four days. These people make me confused, it’s like, if you’re going to use your own time to volunteer, you might as well have fun with it, even if it’s something required by court order or something. Society is hurt by these people as they don’t carry their responsibilities, a problem that affects their co-workers by making them do more work and it has the possibility of creating a bad image of the establishment the irresponsible worker is volunteering or working at. I mean, does anybody like working or looking at someone who doesn’t carry their weight as much as he should? Of course not.
The people that do carry their weight are beneficial to society, as they are the ones making the struggle for shelter or food a much easier process to those struggling individuals, something that I feel that I was a great part of during my time volunteering. Whether or not this form of civic duty is dependent on how responsible the individual is and how dedicated he is to his work. Even with my many minor jobs, ones that could be done by anybody else, I think that St. Vincent De Paul benefitted from my time being there, as I was a good listener, never argued with the people who gave me tasks or orders, and always did my job with no slacking, and it’s not like it’s exactly easy to find teenagers who are willing to do that. I’ve been told that I’ve been doing a good job throughout all of my jobs, and the supervisors always seemed eager for help, so I definitely feel like I made an impact during the 10 hours I spent, and I know that I would always be willing to help once more if they need it.
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| Hella Busy Again! |
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| We Run This Place |
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| "Television Area" |
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| JUICE! |
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| Serious Face for Serious Business |
