One of the most frequent questions I encountered regarding Spring Break is, “Why did you choose service learning while most of your friends were going either South or West to embrace the beach and sunshine?” I have contemplated this question throughout my six-day trip to New York City and have formulated a much more comprehensive and substantial answer than the one I would give at the beginning of the trip.
Back in high school in China, I organized and participated in a number of volunteer activities, such as porridge offering, making signs for safety awareness and caring for the elderly, But I always wondered what community service is like in other parts of the world. I wished to take advantage of service projects in the US to hopefully improve our volunteerism in China. Engaging in service learning abroad is also a precious opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the people and society of that country. So when I saw the opportunity to immerse myself in service learning for one week in NYC during Spring Break, I signed up for Cornell Alternative Spring Program without hesitation. Based on my interests in social justice and equality, I was assigned to Goddard Riverside Community Center, which was one of the fourteen trips offered through the program. What is special about service learning is that it not only exposes students to a different environment, but also engages them in the service they are offering through background knowledge learning, intensive on-site interaction, and reflection. Thus, starting last semester, I, together with other six Cornell teammates, have engaged in weekly meeting, service-specific knowledge learning, and diversity training to fully prepare us for the upcoming trip.
We participated in two programs in Goddard Community Center, TOP (The Other Place) and NYC Meals on Wheels. TOP is a community center for homeless people with mental illness that offers meals, community activities, and mental health assistance. We served there for two days to interact with the clients through conversations and games. I was surprised to find that many clients had a lot of amazing life experience to share. They not only had insightful and useful advice for us such as how to be an independent and strong woman, but were talented at billiards! Sometimes the questions they asked provoked my thoughts and helped me form a clearer blueprint for my career and life. For example, a woman shared a story about her husband with me. She was ill-treated by her husband a long time ago, but with a strong and proud heart, she left him and embarked on a challenging journey with two of her children. She told me that a woman should never lower her head and should always live with self-respect however hard life is. Another man kept reminding me of how privileged I am and encouraged me to make the most of everything I possess.
After this experience, I will not view those homeless people on the street the same way I used to do. Instead, I will acknowledge that everyone has an amazing story to tell and people deserve respect and help because it has taken them a lifetime to get to where they are.
The NYC Meals on Wheels program prepares and delivers meals for 500 home-bound elders on the upper west side of NY. We helped with delivery and preparation. For two days, we delivered meals to over 100 people and prepared over 900 cold meal packs. As exhausted as we were every day, I was reminded of the importance of our service. Our delivery satisfied not only the physical needs of those elders, but also their mental and spiritual demands. The meals we delivered were probably their only meal during the day, and the deliveryman was very likely the only person they come into contact with. They may attach emotional reliance on the deliveryman, and that attachment may even support their lives. Our presence itself mattered a lot to those people.
This profound and fruitful service-learning trip has enabled me to not only serve the under-privileged people but also to observe and learn about the world and myself. I have taken the road less traveled and that has made all the difference.