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Final Reflection

The student created a project called "Students for Senior Citizens" to provide entertainment and volunteer activities for local senior centers. The goals were to increase happiness for seniors and encourage more volunteering. They planned crafts, fishing trips, and music events but the project ended early. Through this experience, the student learned about the hard work of non-profits and importance of teamwork, and how volunteering can benefit both seniors and younger people.

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74 views3 pages

Final Reflection

The student created a project called "Students for Senior Citizens" to provide entertainment and volunteer activities for local senior centers. The goals were to increase happiness for seniors and encourage more volunteering. They planned crafts, fishing trips, and music events but the project ended early. Through this experience, the student learned about the hard work of non-profits and importance of teamwork, and how volunteering can benefit both seniors and younger people.

Uploaded by

api-662034787
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Brewster #1

Logan Brewster
Honors 201: Service Learning
Spring 2020
Dr. Joey Brown
Final Reflection
“Students for Senior Citizens”

“Students for Senior Citizens” was a project that aimed to provide entertainment to local

senior citizen centers, as a way of showing the community’s care and respect for the elderly. My

project teammate was Dayle Chasten, and my project advisor was Della, the Activities Director

at Carl Junction Residential Care, but ended up switching to Administrator Kelli Tracy. The goal

in mind was to increase the overall happiness of local senior citizens, as well as to spread the

idea of volunteering for the elderly. “Students for Senior Citizens” abruptly ended while we were

kicking off the pet photo contest fundraiser. Disregarding the cancellation of our project, we

accomplished quite a few things for these senior citizens.

Dayle and I served by volunteering and providing entertainment to the senior citizen care

centers throughout the nearby Joplin area. We helped spread the wisdom of the elderly by

encouraging others to volunteer at senior centers where just listening to the elderly tell stories of

their past, one can acquire a plethora of widely applicable knowledge. We had planned on

utilizing volunteers in addition to ourselves to work one on one with the senior citizens. What we

scheduled worked out to be a couple of craft days, a fishing trip to a nearby wildlife conservation

site, and at least one jazz ensemble at each care center. Each event was going to be meaningful to

each senior citizen because we were going to dedicate our time solely to bring them joy. Senior

citizens hold a vast expanse of wisdom that can be spread if younger generations take the time to

listen. Our goal was to use that fact to encourage volunteerism, thus promoting happiness for the
Brewster #2

elderly. Regardless of the incompletion of the project, the Service Learning course experience

has given me insight on not-for-profit organizations.

Service Learning has improved many aspects of my sociability/networking skills, showed

me what volunteering amounts to, and why it is so important to volunteer. This course has

enhanced how I adapt to changes, how I speak to strangers, and how I view employees of not-

for-profit organizations. I respected the organization volunteers for what good intentions they

had, but I had no idea of all the hard work that needs to be put into every volunteer organization.

Service Learning also taught me how important working with others can be. I had spent so much

of my life figuring things out on my own that I had forgotten how powerful teamwork is.

“Students for Senior Citizens” helped me to understand that teamwork is needed to complete

tasks in a relatively small amount of time. Whether it is engineering or music, my career will

undoubtedly call on my ability to work with others, adapt to changes, and overcome daunting

tasks. Routing back to volunteering, freely serving an organization that you believe in is not a

chore, it is a gift of experience. I often found myself forgetting that I was “working” on this

project because I was enjoying what I was doing and taking heart in the fact that I was helping

other people. Volunteering in all fields is necessary to keep individuals safe, functioning, and

happy. Whether it is volunteer firefighters or organizational service volunteers like us, we all

share a purpose in keeping lives happily normal. Throughout my experience in creating and

executing this project, I learned several things regarding not-for-profit organizations and my

capabilities in that field.

Regarding the organizations we were working with, I learned that senior citizens are quite

helpful in providing “street smarts,” and that it only takes a small amount of time out of the day

to make a senior citizen happy. The enormous amount of wisdom you can attain from listening to
Brewster #3

the elderly is astonishing and is incredibly helpful at any age. I also learned that volunteering at

these establishments is necessary to keep younger generations informed of mistakes of the past

and how to avoid them. Concerning my personal learning experience with this project, the

boundaries of many skills were pushed and improved. Right from the get-go, I had assumed that

this project would be smooth sailing considering there was very little in the way of stress. That is

just how we designed our project. I was very wrong in this assumption because while this project

was not unbearably stressful, it caused much more stress than I had initially pictured. That said,

the stress was invaluable in motivating me to reach deadlines and to do my absolute best.

“Students for Senior Citizens,” although unfortunately cut short, aimed to be the guiding

hand that would nudge younger generations towards volunteering at senior centers and nudge the

elderly towards greater happiness. We had scheduled arts and crafts, at least one fishing trip, and

jazz band performances for each senior residential care center we worked with. We knew

providing this entertainment would boost the general feelings in these places, and that it would

attract other volunteers for the senior centers. Service Learning has provided me with oceans of

knowledge and experience, in an exceptionally short amount of time. The course has changed

how I interact with strangers and how I perceive volunteers. I have learned to become more

persistent and to persevere when goals seem unachievable. Service Learning provided me with

the opportunity to create this project, and this project has allowed me to see a better side to

situations. “Students for Senior Citizens” may be unfinished, but I am still very proud of what

was accomplished.

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