My time spent volunteering this past year was incredibly rewarding. I met many new people throughout my time volunteering and also gained many new experiences. I was able to work with Columbus as a community, which made it feel more like my home. It was very refreshing seeing the positive impact that Ohio State has on the city of Columbus.
My most memorable service experience would definitely have to be my time spent with College Mentors for Kids. College Mentors for Kids is essentially an organization aimed at bringing younger kids from underprivileged schools in Columbus to Ohio State to teach them about the importance of education and college. My favorite experience within this organization would have to be when the Physics Club came to demonstrate some experiments with the kids. My little buddy, Savannah, was so thrilled to see all of the different experiments and her excitement and interest to learn was a great reminder of the importance of education. This was very eye-opening as higher education is not always an oppurtunity for some people, such as these students, and made me realize how lucky and grateful I should be to be attending Ohio State, as well as all of the oppurtunities it offers me.
Along with volunteering as a college mentor for 2 hours a week here at the Ohio Union (for a total of about 16 hours), I also volunteered at the Community Commitment event at the very beginning of this school year. For around 4-5 hours, we helped to renovate an older church building by moving/destroying furniture, as well as repainting some of the rooms. I also participated in the MLK Day of Service Event. For this event, we went to COSI to help package a kit that was necessary for a surgical simulation and these boxes were then shipped to different schools. I volunteered at this event for about 6 hours. Each of my experiences were unique in their own way, but each helped me realize the real-life impact that I was able to have on my community both directly and indirectly.