Conclusion

As the title suggests, this will be my last post concerning my service work this semester in the Washington Neighborhood. I completed my last hours of service on November 19th at the Saint Patrick’s parish dinner. The last few weeks that I spent at the dinner were with the members of Saint Pat’s parish and not any of the other parishes around Dubuque. I learned last week that the union will no longer be putting on the dinner during the third Wednesday of the month so the St. Pat’s people will be doing that dinner as well now. During my last few weeks, I didn’t notice any anger or some of the attempts at misleading that I saw in previous weeks. All of the people that attended the dinners were very gracious and kind to the volunteers and others. This makes me wonder why I noticed some of those actions during those couple of weeks and not at any other time. Perhaps there were a couple of people that gave me that perception that did not attend any more dinners. Overall, I leave the service opportunity with a very good feeling about the volunteers as well as the people that attend the dinner. I have next listed the goals and the means for reaching those goals that I made for my service project before I began volunteering. I then list my assessments about how I think that did during my service in reaching those goals after my hours were complete.

Goals:

My goals for this service project are to 1) learn about the people that live in the Washington Neighborhood, 2) get to know other people that volunteer at the dinner and what their motivations for helping are, and 3) to increase my ability to perform service and to help understand why I should spend time volunteering within the community.

Means:

The means for achieving these goals will be mainly accomplished through my time volunteering at the dinner at St. Patrick’s Parish every Wednesday from 3:45 until 6:15. I will make sure to try and talk with the people that attend the dinner when I can so that I can learn as much about them as possible. I will also take the opportunities that I have to talk to the other volunteers that help out with the dinner. I will also try and take time to reflect about my service experience each week to see what I have gained from my volunteering time. I will get to know the Washington Neighborhood better by participating in the clean-up day on October 18th which will be a great time for me to see where the people live. The Winterization Project on October 25th will allow me to see inside the homes of some of the people within in the Neighborhood and maybe some of the struggles that they are encountering.

Assessments:

1) I believe that I have learned a lot about the people that live in the Washington Neighborhood during my 30 hours of service. I was able to see where people lived, both inside and outside of their homes while I was performing service at the clean-up and winterization challenge. I have learned that many people live very simply and in conditions that are well below to what I am used to. Many people are trying to improve the condition of the neighborhood, but there are still many properties in need of drastic help. My time at Saint Patrick’s Parish has taught me that many people from the Washington Neighborhood are in such great need that they must rely on the dinners for survival. I believe that my areas of service were ideal for this goal and I think that I achieved it.

2) I spent much of my service time working with many different people. This did not allow me to build any close relationships with other volunteers, but I was able to see a wide range of people doing service. I learned that the people with the Washington Neighborhood Association spend a lot of their free time trying to help out their area just so that it is a better place to live. Their motivations are to make their neighborhood a better place to raise a family. I was able to draw that the main reason that people volunteered at the weekly dinners were because they know of the need for their help. Many of the volunteers knew many of the people and would talk to them while they were there. The main goal of the volunteers was to make the people feel welcome and do everything that they could to let them have a nice, peaceful meal.

3) I think that my service time did allow me to increase my ability to do volunteer work. The main thing that I have learned is that there are service opportunities everywhere and I could volunteer my time nearly every day if I so choose to. I possess many of the talents that are required for service, I just need to put some of my time off to the side so that I can use them. Spending 2 to 3 hours a week volunteering is easily doable for me at this time of my life and I am going to attempt and volunteer more than I have in the past. I am going to attend some of the dinners next semester as I know that I have no other commitments on Wednesday’s evening and I have really enjoyed working at the dinner this semester.

I think that I achieved most of my goals that I created before service began. I think that the main reason that I was able to do this was because of the service sites that I worked at. The clean-up and winterization project were great in allowing me to get a look at the neighborhood in way that I would not have gotten to see otherwise. This also allowed me to see volunteers that were different than the ones that help out at the dinners. I think my primary service site was absolutely perfect for my goals and the overall point of the project. I was among many people that truly needed help and many other volunteers. Looking back, I don’t think I would change anything about my service. It has been a great experience and I am really glad to be a part of the honors program with this required class.