Recently, I participated in a service event on February 10th and 13th with the Accounting Association at Ohio State University. My friend, Jennifer Huang, is the VP of community service and the social chair of the Accounting Association. She invited me to participate in creating and delivering Valentine’s day cards for the residents of the Ohio Living Westminster-Thurber Retirement Home. I helped her buy the supplies, create cards, and deliver them to the nursing home.
We started this project by finding an affordable store with art supplies near campus, which proved to be difficult. After visiting stores like Blick’s Art Supplies we eventually found a dollar store that offered more options. Jennifer bought construction paper, stickers, glitter, glue, and postcards. A couple days later we met in her dorm to create some examples for the Accounting Association members’ Valentines Day cards. The next day, Jennifer went to the club meeting and led the members in creating cards. Then on February 13th I accompanied Jennifer to the nursing home to deliver the cards. Unfortunately, we had slight trouble navigating downtown Columbus to find it. When we arrived at the nursing home we went and talked to the activities coordinator who gave us instructions on who to give the cards to. Jennifer and I went to each dining hall in the retirement home to offer cards and chat with the residents. Many loved the cards and were happy to know Ohio State Students were thinking of them. We even met a couple alumni!
There were some difficult moments when they could not understand us or vice versa. It was especially difficult in the memory unit where many residents had dementia or alzheimer’s. However, I have experience with this as 2 of my grandparents suffer from the disease. There were also some really sweet moments when the residents expressed their gratitude and complemented our artistic skills. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the retirement home had cats. They were extremely cute and friendly. Overall, I found this experience rewarding and enjoyable. I love being able to use something I enjoy (making cards and doing anything artistic) to brighten up someone’s day.
This relates to the topic of International Affairs because it involves learning how to interact with a group of people who are unfamiliar to you. People can be unfamiliar to you and be culturally different in many ways. It can be through gender, sexuality, race, or generation. The main aspect that made those at the retirement home unfamiliar to me was the generational gap. The cultural environment in a retirement home is very different from the cultural environment at Ohio State University. To be successful in your interactions there you need to make adjustments in how you communicate, you need to engage in different activities, and you need to react differently in certain situations. These are the same skills that are important in being successful in the field of International Affairs.