Major Service Project Prompts

1. Describe your involvement with this organization
2. Describe what you gained as a result of this experience.
3. Describe positive changes to the community as a result of your service experience.
4. Describe a person with whom you interacted that made a strong impression on you, positive or negative.
5. Complete the following sentence: “Because of this service experience, I am__________”

Service Site Name: The Peter Maurin Center

Describe your involvement with this organization.

The Peter Maurin Center is a food shelter that takes in the homeless in the Akron area. I became affiliated with them through my mother and St. Mary’s church. I started volunteering here in high school so I have gotten to know the guests as we call them fairly well. This is because we have our regular guests come in every week. I would help to cook the food and advertise to our church if anyone would like to bring in food donations for the week. Once the food is prepared I would help to serve the food and then proceed to make my rounds and interact with the guests. When they are finished with their food I would help to collect dishes and then clean them for the next time around.

Describe what you gained as a result of this experience.

Every time I go to the Peter Maurin Center I feel that I learn something new. It exposes me to an environment that i am not used to. I have grown up in a upper middle class family and have had the opportunity to have a good life sheltered from all of the horrors the world has to behold. Speaking with the guests allows me to almost have a foot in their world and I can step into their shoes for a moment. It has helped me greatly in changing my opinions on people and has helped me over the years in securing jobs or internships because they have made me into a better person. I feel that I am more cultured because of them. I think the most surprising thing to me was how I could have intelligent conversations with them and a lot of the time they had more wisdom and knowledge than I may ever have.

Describe positive changes to the community as a result of your service experience.

The homeless who come in get a good meal for lunch and the center is open three times a week on Tuesday, Friday, Sunday. The center also supplies bus passes for the homeless to get around Akron and help them get to the hospital if they have any medical issues. It also gives the homeless a place where they can get together every week and I think it’s good to have a place to commune.

Describe a person with whom you interacted that made a strong impression on you, positive or negative.

The person I connected with the most was John. We called him the piano man because everyday he was there he would hop onto the piano and play. He started out not knowing how to play and he started to get really good. He had an ear for the music and could just play pretty much anything after a year of practicing three times a week. He was a veteran and extremely knowledgable. It really made me aware of the problems many veterans have in finding jobs or a place to live when they get back after serving. I love playing chess with him even though he destroys me every game. He’s always the first one I talk to when I get there and the last one. We just ended up connecting in a way I can’t explain.

Complete the following sentence: “Because of this service experience, I am______”.

Because of this service experience, I am more cultured, a better listener, more accepting of people, and I find it easier to converse with new people I haven’t met before allowing me to make connections with others.