Ryan Kwapniowski's FLP Portfolio

Service Reflection

 

        In high school, service was an enforced thing that everyone saw as a chore that needed to get done, 30 service hours a semester to maintain your national honors society status. But at Creighton, service is something more. It is a valued aspect of a connection between our lives and our community. Having the opportunity to come to Creighton University, I have learned to appreciate and love various parts of service and community involvement. In the Freshman Leadership Program, we place a high emphasis on service and how one can better ourselves by learning from our community. Each week we attend a scheduled service site with our mentor families in which we get to play, teach, and interact with different kids and help them understand and grow into the person they want to be. My first semester, I was assigned to the Boys and Girls Club in south Omaha. This part of town is known for it highly dense population of hispanic families. Most kids at the Club were able to speak two languages and came from a rough background. We started off by teaching second and third graders about drugs and alcohol and I felt extremely uncomfortable. The things this after school program was teaching them were things I had not even known existed until eight grade year. Slowly, I began to understand how the program worked and why the kids needed to learn the things they were learning. It wasn't for intelligence purposes, so after school they knew where to go to get all the goods, but rather to educate them on the effect of what happens and how they can avoid it. Coming from west Omaha, it was almost shocking to see a different world right in my own hometown. I struggled making connections with kids and was almost relieved to see the semester come to an end. Second semester, I had requested to be placed at the Children's Respite Center. Immediately, I found a place that I belonged. Although I saw the importance of teaching the young students about the dangerous effects of various things in our daily lives, being able to put a smile on some kids face, and just having the ability to care for them and realize their potential served a much greater purpose in my life. I have since applied for a regular full calendar volunteer position at Children's Respite and hope to continue my journey at CRCC.

 

 

"The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."

                    -Mahatma Gandhi