Prompt: One of the core values of Villanova, as an Augustinian university founded on the teachings of St. Augustine, is that students and faculty learn from each other. As you imagine yourself as a member of the Villanova community, what is one lesson that you have learned in your life that you will want to share with others?
Driving down a street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, five years after Hurricane Katrina, all I could see were empty lots and cement steps to houses that were no longer there. The houses that I had seen on other streets were still marked with an enormous "X" given by search and rescue teams and were often vacant...
I will admit that for the greater part of my high school career I cared little about anything more than what was happening immediately around me. I was going to school every day. I was making friends and having fun. I had participated in numerous community service efforts locally and that was the only extent of my community service. It was during my junior year, however, when I attended a service trip to New Orleans that I saw the tragedy of Lower Ninth Ward and I realized how limited my service work had been. After experiencing the harsh reality of this world that had previously been unknown to me, it became clear to me that tragedies such as the one I had just witnessed occur throughout the world and that they require actions from people around the world in order to be overcome.
After my New Orleans experience, the world no longer seemed like some foreign place apart my own home. Community service, to me, had come to mean service to the community of the world as well as service to areas around my home and school. The same issues that many people face across the globe were not only their own concerns now, but they became my own concerns as well. The problems such as world hunger and poverty no longer seemed so far from my own life. It became apparent that issues I had learned about American history, such as civil rights and equality, affect millions of people world-wide today.
Being a member of the global community, it is each person's duty to not only benefit one's self, but also, if not especially so, benefit those one will never meet. To do so would be to fulfill both religious and moral expectations, as well as the desire to aid in the progression of humanity and society as a whole. With this belief in mind, I traveled to Peru to work with poor there. I built a real home for a family that had never had one and changed that family's life as I did so. Also, I had volunteered to count the daily mission collection money that benefits Christian Brother schools around the world. Early this year I had prepared a presentation that was presented to the entire school as a means to educate them on the necessity of both local and international charity efforts. It emphasized the ability that we have, given our opportunities, to help the world one step at a time.
In my service work for the betterment of those that live apart from my own community and around the world, I had become connected to humanity on a global scale. And it is this lesson, to educate others on the need for action on global issues, that I wish to bring to students and teachers at Villanova. After my experiences in both New Orleans and abroad, I was no longer the kid simply working in school and playing with friends. I had become the man who strove to help the world, a world that I may have never seen but will forever be a part of.
Driving down a street in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, five years after Hurricane Katrina, all I could see were empty lots and cement steps to houses that were no longer there. The houses that I had seen on other streets were still marked with an enormous "X" given by search and rescue teams and were often vacant...
I will admit that for the greater part of my high school career I cared little about anything more than what was happening immediately around me. I was going to school every day. I was making friends and having fun. I had participated in numerous community service efforts locally and that was the only extent of my community service. It was during my junior year, however, when I attended a service trip to New Orleans that I saw the tragedy of Lower Ninth Ward and I realized how limited my service work had been. After experiencing the harsh reality of this world that had previously been unknown to me, it became clear to me that tragedies such as the one I had just witnessed occur throughout the world and that they require actions from people around the world in order to be overcome.
After my New Orleans experience, the world no longer seemed like some foreign place apart my own home. Community service, to me, had come to mean service to the community of the world as well as service to areas around my home and school. The same issues that many people face across the globe were not only their own concerns now, but they became my own concerns as well. The problems such as world hunger and poverty no longer seemed so far from my own life. It became apparent that issues I had learned about American history, such as civil rights and equality, affect millions of people world-wide today.
Being a member of the global community, it is each person's duty to not only benefit one's self, but also, if not especially so, benefit those one will never meet. To do so would be to fulfill both religious and moral expectations, as well as the desire to aid in the progression of humanity and society as a whole. With this belief in mind, I traveled to Peru to work with poor there. I built a real home for a family that had never had one and changed that family's life as I did so. Also, I had volunteered to count the daily mission collection money that benefits Christian Brother schools around the world. Early this year I had prepared a presentation that was presented to the entire school as a means to educate them on the necessity of both local and international charity efforts. It emphasized the ability that we have, given our opportunities, to help the world one step at a time.
In my service work for the betterment of those that live apart from my own community and around the world, I had become connected to humanity on a global scale. And it is this lesson, to educate others on the need for action on global issues, that I wish to bring to students and teachers at Villanova. After my experiences in both New Orleans and abroad, I was no longer the kid simply working in school and playing with friends. I had become the man who strove to help the world, a world that I may have never seen but will forever be a part of.
