Community Narrative

I have participated in several community service projects including: Serving at the Banquet, Kids Against Hunger, Mission Trips to New York City and Detroit and assisting a first grade classroom. Through these projects, I have been able to serve those in the Sioux Falls community and abroad. Serving at the Banquet allows the homeless and hungry of Sioux Falls to come and eat a warm meal. During the hours spent there, you not only get to serve the food, but you also get a chance to talk with some of the people and learn just how gracious they are. My favorite story of working at the Banquet took place around Christmas time. A couple dressed up as Santa and Mrs. Claus, took pictures with the children and provided toys for them. This 5 year old boy, all dressed up in his Buzz Lightyear pajamas, was having a rough day according to his mom. While helping carry his tray, I asked if he got his picture with Santa. “Santa’s here? Is he the real one? Where are the reindeer?” exclaimed the boy. I signaled the elves to come over and they gave him a toy car. All of the sudden you saw his eyes light up with excitement and soon he was running around the room with the biggest grin on his face. This may just be one story, but it made a difference. At Kids Against Hunger, with members of my church, we packed meals to send to hungry children in the United States as well as worldwide. They have an assembly line to make the most efficient use of your time, while packing the meals that will be sent off to various locations. The meals consist of long grain rice, crushed soy, dehydrated vegetables, vitamin and mineral powder. For each of the bags I helped pack, six hungry children got a nutritious meal. In the summer of 2014, I went to New York City on a mission trip. Every morning we would serve at least one homeless shelter. We served breakfast at one shelter and served lunch at Trinity Lutheran Church. The church was special because it allowed us to prepare the meal, serve it and clean up. Along with the meal, they had a groceries set up to give to families. They would come in and …show more content…
We were assigned a section of the community in need to help clean up. The area we received, was a plot of land in downtown Detroit, owned by a lady that runs a youth program to get neighborhood children a background in business. Through careful thought and preparation with the youth, they decided to make a miniature golf course with the land. While serving, we got to meet the children and clean up the land. When we came in, it was covered in trash, branches, leaves and looked like a disaster. With the help of around 60 willing volunteers, we were able to clean up the land. We raked and bagged the leaves, picked up all the trash, trimmed the trees, painted the sidewalk, cleared the cement of grass and weeds. By the end of the day, we had 35 bags of trash and several piles of branches and trees. At the youth conference, Habitat for Humanity was set up and our church was able to help build houses for the needy and disabled. We assembled the frames of three houses to be built in