Community Commitment Day is held annually at The Ohio State University to allow students to serve their community during the first week of life back on campus. Although I used this event to fulfill my service requirement for Honors & Scholars, Community Commitment Day meant much more to me and my peers. There is something beautiful about serving and exploring the Columbus community with over 1,000 of our peers. The support from the community around us is endless, and in order to return this support, we serve the community on the first weekend of the year.
This year, I was honored enough to serve a community just outside of the city. Along with many other IA Scholars, I travelled to Clintonville’s Community Resource Center (CRC). During our time at the CRC, we were further divided into groups of five to help clean the yards of the elder CRC members. When we arrived at the home of those who were serving, I quickly introduced myself to the beautiful couple. They were able to direct us to where the outside of their home needed work and provide us the tools in order to do so. We were led to the backyard, where we saw an overwhelming amount of weeds that needed to be pulled – including poison ivy (yikes!). The gentleman later came out and entrusted me with a manual weed wacker! I quickly, and safely, got down to work. Although I was sweating within five minutes, serving this family made me incredibly happy, and to do it with some of my best friends made it even better. I was also able to spend some time with a few first years, and quickly befriended them!
About two hours later, we were about halfway done with the yard, which was unfortunately where our service needed to end for the day. When we began cleaning up our materials, it was incredible to see the results we had achieved. The family was extremely appreciative of our hard work, and even commented on how beautiful it was!
The event relates to the topic of International Affairs very nicely because it allows us to serve the community around us, and get involved with those different than ourselves. Although not on an international scale, diversity was present throughout the day as we worked hard. Diverse ages, majors, interests, and backgrounds came together in order to accomplish a simple mission. Although not a traditional method of learning, I think service experience offers one a lot of knowledge. Personally, I relearned the idea that service can be fun when you enjoy what you’re doing. It was definitely a great way to start out the school year.
Once we all returned to the CRC, the managers expressed their gratefulness to us all, and sent us on our way back to campus. While we were all physically exhausted, we were mentally satisfied with how we spent our mornings.
Below, I attached a link to the CRC’s website where more details can be found about who they are, what their mission is, as well as events for which they may need volunteers.