Thanksgiving volunteering experience

Michelle, a parent of a student who was in the same school as my children (The Children’s school) was the one who introduced me to the service opportunity. In addition to my two children attending this school, I also spend time there doing my practicum. One day while I was observing the 8th grade class for my practicum, Michelle came into the class and introduced the students to a volunteering event that was to be held at their school Sunday morning Nov, 24 at 9:30 am. Although I have experienced several volunteering activities in Kuwait I have not been able to volunteer in San Diego because it is hard to manage, school, family, and am not sure of places to do charity work. Therefore, I was excited to be part of an event in a place that I am familiar with.

One Nov, 24th, I took my two children Yousif and Zaina with me to The Children’s School. It was challenging to have to get up on a day that I would normally be relaxing or studying on. I went to the school and when I got there, there was about 30 adults working like bees. There was boxes lined in rows on the ground and stocks of food that are needed to be put in each box. For example, the coordinator will say its time for a stuffing and you will see that people will grab stuffing and put stuffing in each box. After the boxes were filled with food, we closed them and the people who were distributing them loaded them to their cars. They were to be delivered near the Mexican border.

It was a nice experience especially for my little ones. I thought it was a good time to teach them the meaning of giving and volunteering. To be honest, they did not help much and went to play with a boy they knew, but I tried to make each one of them to do one task. For example, I told Yousif to distribute bread and Zaina to close the boxes. They were happy to do those tasks. They also volunteered in their own way; they took care of a two year old boy. I was surprised when I told them to come to take a photo with the volunteering team they told me that they could not because they were babysitting that boy. I liked how they felt responsible for this boy and for the task assigned to them.