Gavin West

Mrs. Larson P2

English 2010

Service Learning

For my service learning project I did three separate things that were all in the same nature. I

had in mind that since Christmas is approaching, people will be giving and receiving gifts and being

able to enjoy the necessities of life with their loved ones. I began to think about who wouldn't be able

to enjoy gift giving and receiving this holiday season, and who might suffer from the cold winter

approaching. With these thoughts, I decided that I wanted to make donations of useful and needed

items to inner city families and the homeless shelters. Every year when the holidays come around,

my grandpa gives each person in my family one hundred dollars to use in service of others and report

back to him what we did. With this one hundred dollars and the service projects I had in mind, I got to

work.

While I thought about what might be helpful to people who are less fortunate during the

holidays and the winter in general, my little brother and I decided to buy blankets for the homeless

shelter. I drove my little brother to the Reams near our house and found some very warm and nice

blankets for only ten dollars each. He decided he wanted to use all of his money on the blankets, so

we bought ten blankets, which was luckily the rest of what they had. We drove down to the homeless

shelter downtown and donated them, it was an awesome experience and made both of us feel

extremely happy.

While at the homeless shelter, I asked a lady working there what else they would be in need of

and what would be useful to those staying there. She told me that socks are in very high demand, as

that winter is beginning and many people need them. After dropping the blankets off, I went to a

Walmart near the shelter with the money my grandpa had given me. I found a bin of warm socks that

came in a pack of ten, each pack being about four dollars. I bought the entire bin of socks which had

about ten packs of socks in it. I even had a lady ask me why I was buying so many socks, I told her it
was for the homeless shelter, she smiled and said that was a great idea, and proceeded to grab a

bin of them as well. That alone made me feel amazing. My brother and I drove back to the shelter and

donated the socks. We were met by the lady we had talked to previously, she seemed somewhat

shocked that two teenage boys were donating things willingly to the homeless shelter. She thanked

us for our donations and said that they would be greatly appreciated by the residents. Again I was hit

with a warm feeling of gratitude and love for others. This service thing is really cool, I thought. I

should do this more often.

After giving the socks to the homeless shelter, I was eager to keep doing service. I had just

over fifty dollars left of the money that my grandpa had given me. I told my mom about our service

learning project and she was excited to tell me that our church ward was doing a service project for

inner city families. We would buy certain items such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, gloves, hand

warmers, granola bars, oranges, paper towels, and had sanitizer. We would use these items to create

kits to donate to each family. My mom and I went to the Dollar Tree and bought ten of each item that

we needed, to create a total of ten kits and use the rest of the money I had. We went home and put

together the kits to get ready to donate. On that coming Saturday the 12th of December, we drove

around our neighborhood and picked up kits from each person who had made them, and dropped

them off at our church to be taken to the inner city by our ward director. It was yet another great

service experience that made me feel so happy.

I definitely know that this project had an impact on those I served, but it also had a huge

impact on me. For those I served, they will hopefully be kept warm and comfortable by the blankets,

their feet protected and warmed by the socks, and hopefully kept clean and healthy from the kits.

Because of many of these peoples unfortunate events or lack of money for any reason, I know that

what I donated will be of help to them during this Christmas and winter season. I know that if I was

not as fortunate and blessed as I am, that I would greatly appreciate a blanket and socks to keep me

warm, and a kit to ensure my health and cleanliness, especially during our specific current world
events. These projects had an impact on me because giving to those less fortunate than me gave me

a feeling of love and compassion towards those I was serving, and it made me feel so happy in

general. Because of these experiences I know that I want to continue to serve others any time that I

can. I’m not exactly sure If what I did contributed to our community a whole lot, but I hope it did in a

small way. I know that from what I donated I contributed some physical items to hopefully help out

those in need, but I feel like I may have contributed love and care in some way. Serving others will

always have an emotional service to part of it, no matter what kind of service it is. I truly hope that

along with the physical items I contributed to our community, a bit of love and caring came from it as

well. I also learned a lot from serving others. I mostly learned that service is an awesome way to help

others, but also to make yourself happy. After doing the service that I did, I was so overwhelmed with

happiness and was eager to keep serving. I also learned that service is contagious from the lady I

spoke to in Walmart about the socks I was buying. Finally, I learned that serving others always

conveys a message of love and support for others, no matter what kind of service is being done.

To conclude, I found out that I love to serve others. No matter how little the act is, service is an

amazing way to show love to others, but to also make yourself happy. In Shawn Achor’s Ted Talk

“The Happy Secret to Better Work,” he talks about how service is one of the five ways that you can

ultimately ensure the happiness of others and yourself. After performing service and seeing for

myself, it is clear to me now that he is completely right. Service is such a great thing that many people

don’t see as a way to make yourself happy, but it truly is. I absolutely loved this project and will do

everything I can to continue to serve others in the future because I like being happy, and serving

others makes me happy.