For my STEP signature project, I participated in the Buck-I-SERV trip in Nashville, Tennessee with the Medici Project. It was a week-long trip in May where each day of the week we volunteered with two different organizations for about 6 hours a day. Each morning we volunteered with a new organization in Nashville including A Room in the Inn, Second Harvest, Nashville Rescue Mission, Graceworks, and One Generation away. These organizations helped with people experiencing homelessness and/or food insecurity. Each afternoon we volunteered at PTM, an after school program for students in grades K-8, where we played games, helped with homework, and built connections with them.
This trip showed me so much about our world and how I can help out my community back at home in similar ways. Volunteering at the 5 different organizations that worked to help people experiencing homelessness/food insecurity showed me how many resources we actually have in our world today to help people in need. There are so many people in our world who have no idea where their next meal is going to come from, but there is also so much food that is wasted everyday. Second Harvest, Nashville Rescue Mission, and Graceworks all were partnered with grocery stores to receive food that was not able to be sold at their stores, but was still perfectly fine to eat. Each of these organizations was able to provide thousands of meals a week for families because of that food not going to waste. If organizations like these were more prevalent and partnered with every grocery store, more and more families across the world could be provided meals at no cost just as these organizations do.
Seeing how many places in Nashville need volunteers to keep their impacts going, I came back to Columbus wanting to help my community in the same ways I helped people in Nashville. I realized that in 2 hours of my time on this trip we were able to create hundreds of meals for families each day and how I need to start volunteering here at school to make similar impacts as I did in Nashville. I found a place to volunteer called Mid Ohio Food Collective, where they have similar missions to the places that I volunteered in in Nashville.
The most eye opening experiences that I personally had were at A Room in the Inn and Nashville Rescue mission. Before this trip I honestly had no idea that places like these existed. These were both organizations that worked with people experiencing homelessness that not only just helped to give people basic necessities and places to stay, but also helped to get them back on their feet, finding jobs and permanent housing. It was amazing to talk to and listen to the people who worked at these places to see their true dedication to make the lives of other people better. It was truly inspiring.
I was also impacted by Vince, the person who ran the Medici Project. He formed connections with all the places we volunteered and you could just see in his actions how good of a person he was and how he wanted the best for everyone who volunteered at the places he was partnered with. I think that he made our experience as best as it could have possibly been by how informative he was and allowing us to see how to show benevolence to anyone we cross paths with in life. I know that if I ever wanted to open up a non profit or start an organization to help people in the future that he would be there to help me get started and give his best advice.
Overall, each of these places we went had a special impact on me that I will carry with me through the rest of my life, but I think that something I will never forget are the kids and teachers that we met at PTM. The kids adored us so much and in just the short time we were there, we were all able to form bonds with them and see how the little things in life bring joy to so many children. Also, seeing how the teachers formed connections with the children and were so looked up to was an amazing example of impactful people can be on the lives of children. I want to work with kids post-grad, so seeing how impactful these relationships were was really amazing for me to see and made me so excited to be able to impact the lives of children positively in the future.
This change/transformation was so valuable for my life because it solidified my extreme desire to help people when I am older. I have always told everyone that I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I knew I wanted to help people. I was impacted by this trip more than I ever could’ve imagined before going on it and I met people along the way that I will never ever forget. I cannot wait to take the experiences and life-lessons that I received on this trip to help not only better my community but the rest of the world.