I watch as her physical
inabilities try to conquer her intelligence. I see her struggle with
the everyday tasks we all take for granted. She teaches me with her
actions and words and I help her with my presence and understanding.
We both wanted the same things from life. I am aspiring to do what
she always wanted and she has accomplished who I hope to someday be.
She may not realize but she guides me just as much as I guide her.
She is my teacher, my friend, and in a smaller part, my community service.
I met her through my mother, who worked for her last summer. At first
we saw each other only when I followed my mother to work on Thursday mornings.
I never thought that this one woman would have such an impact on who I
have become.
My work with community service changed my outlook on life.
In her younger years,
she wanted to teach at a school for Deaf children teaching them American
Sign Language. She was a swimmer who hoped to be a lifeguard by the
end of the summer. She was the girl who was looking for fun and a
great education at the same time. If I were to see her on paper I
would think the writer was talking about me. She began talking about
her college plans and her dreams and I realized that I was her younger
self.
Interest and self-motivation brought me to make her my community
service project. My mother told me over the summer when I was working
five days a week that I should never base my work on money, but on the
benefits that others can bring to me. After meeting Margie I knew
what my mother meant.
When I thought about community service I thought of helping small
children, the future of this town, my community. After meeting Margie,
I recognized that the older generation of this town had so much to offer
by way of experience and that I should take advantage of what most teenagers
were not.
I believe that service
to our communities is by far the most important thing we can do for our
futures. It builds a community around the center of giving and sharing,
the two most important aspects of life. Community service is something,
among the few that truly come from the heart, not the wallet. Community
service is generally free and is motivated not by monetary funds, but by
self-motivation and the art of caring for others.
Everyone has something to offer and whether they realize it or not,
their small, seemingly insignificant gift could easily change the life
of another. Often times, people do not realize what they have to
offer until someone else tells them or another comes to them. In
my case, my mother inspired me by making me understand that I had a connection
with Margie by the way of talking with her and keeping company. Since
she has become my friend, Margie and I have had innumerable conversations,
and heart felt talks. We seem to have the everyday teenage girl conversations.
We often find ourselves in conversations focused around boys, movies, the
prom, and television shows. Never once do we critique one an other,
just the current television show, and never do we mention her disease.
While Margie uses our time to escape the difficulties of her Multiple Sclerosis,
I use our time to learn about the struggle she faces everyday. In
watching her during our conversations, I see who I want to be. She
is a strong woman who is always smiling and always appreciates a good chat.
I wish that everyone was able to have the same type of relationship with
another person as what I have with her.
Imagine if everyone in
the world or simply in a specific town was paired with a person interested
in making the world a better place through sharing ideas and helping the
other person. If everyone person in my community took one hour every
week to help another person who could benefit from their services, there
could be such a change in the culture of our town. When people help
others, they feel better about themselves and they truly do make a change
in the life of another person. It is so important to understand that
a person can not just live for them self. If they live to serve,
or at least contribute to the service community, they are making progressive
change. There are more people to help and I hear others constantly
saying that they have nothing to offer those people. Or that they
can not find a community service project. Community service should
not be done to impress a college or look great on a resume, but rather
do what it says, serve the community. Our community we all live in
is a culture and if we push to be modern and civil we must first accept
and give help from others. We can not be a culture without one an
other and we would not function well if we did not recognize the need in
our communities. Funding is always in demand to help people in a
town or city, but there is an easier solution. Building a culture
is not at all an individual task, and it starts when people learn to help
each other and care for each other. If young people begin community
service in small ways, they set a greater example for every generation.
So much focus is placed on which group of young people is behaving negatively,
when all though this is true, there are other teens in a community who
are using their time to help anyone they can. Recognizing a problem
and solving it is easily done through community service because human beings
have a natural instinct to help others and solve problems. Once we
find our inner instinct we can make a world of difference that is so needed
in our community culture. What started out to be my community service
project is now my friend and hero, and I feel that the world will be a
better place when people follow the lead of people like myself and seek
out people like Margie.