Prompt: Drawing upon your academic, creative, personal, and extracurricular interests and experiences, propose the community service or research project that you would most like to undertake at AU.
It had begun as a project I did with the members of my Girl Scout troop. We started going as early as middle school, as the troop leader's church hosted the events once every month. It was called After Care, a program that provides accompaniment to mentally challenged adults. We ate dinner with them, played games with them, talked with them, and taught them lessons in English and Math. In middle school, I didn't really know what I was getting into. I just saw it as a way I could hang out with my friends after school, but it was much more than that. My Girl Scout troop stopped visiting them cohesively after about a year, but I had developed an unexpected personal connection with them, particularly a man named Kurt. Kurt was an artist, but was extremely reluctant to show anyone any of his drawings. He would always sit in the corner of the big room we were gathered in and huddle over a piece of paper and just draw. This isolation left me curious and I really wanted him to open to me. So I started to grab my own pen and paper and sit next to him and draw. He would notice me because he would glance at me at first, but he would never say anything. I never said anything either; I just felt the desire to sit next to him and felt my presence could let him know that he wasn't alone and that he didn't have to isolate himself all the time. I continued to sit next to him during every meeting for months and we would just draw peacefully. He began to talk to other people more, eat more at dinner, become more outgoing during the meetings, and he was smiling more. Reaching out to this one person in the way that I did is one of the things I am most proud of in my life. On a larger scale, it may not seem very important. But I made someone feel less alone and appeased whatever pain was residing in their heart. We are each one person and we are all important. Change does not happen all at once. It happens when happiness is spread one person at a time. As a member of American University, I would like to start a community service project similar to one at After Care, where time is spent with mentally challenged adults, who perhaps feel all alone in their lives. With a program like this one in place, I feel as if participants and volunteers will be able to learn from each other, as they both have important life lessons to offer. Providing one on one tutoring for core subjects would also be an integral part of this program, as it is extremely important to educate the members of our society.
It had begun as a project I did with the members of my Girl Scout troop. We started going as early as middle school, as the troop leader's church hosted the events once every month. It was called After Care, a program that provides accompaniment to mentally challenged adults. We ate dinner with them, played games with them, talked with them, and taught them lessons in English and Math. In middle school, I didn't really know what I was getting into. I just saw it as a way I could hang out with my friends after school, but it was much more than that. My Girl Scout troop stopped visiting them cohesively after about a year, but I had developed an unexpected personal connection with them, particularly a man named Kurt. Kurt was an artist, but was extremely reluctant to show anyone any of his drawings. He would always sit in the corner of the big room we were gathered in and huddle over a piece of paper and just draw. This isolation left me curious and I really wanted him to open to me. So I started to grab my own pen and paper and sit next to him and draw. He would notice me because he would glance at me at first, but he would never say anything. I never said anything either; I just felt the desire to sit next to him and felt my presence could let him know that he wasn't alone and that he didn't have to isolate himself all the time. I continued to sit next to him during every meeting for months and we would just draw peacefully. He began to talk to other people more, eat more at dinner, become more outgoing during the meetings, and he was smiling more. Reaching out to this one person in the way that I did is one of the things I am most proud of in my life. On a larger scale, it may not seem very important. But I made someone feel less alone and appeased whatever pain was residing in their heart. We are each one person and we are all important. Change does not happen all at once. It happens when happiness is spread one person at a time. As a member of American University, I would like to start a community service project similar to one at After Care, where time is spent with mentally challenged adults, who perhaps feel all alone in their lives. With a program like this one in place, I feel as if participants and volunteers will be able to learn from each other, as they both have important life lessons to offer. Providing one on one tutoring for core subjects would also be an integral part of this program, as it is extremely important to educate the members of our society.
