Something that I enjoy doing is giving back to my community. This internship gave me a great opportunity to do that. Camila and I both work at the Development Corporation, so we decided to partner up on the community service. To start, we made flyers letting people know that we were willing to do yard work for them. We posted the flyer to facebook and got two requests for yard work. Then, we asked a group of our friends if they wanted to help us. We got quite a few volunteers willing to help us out.
The first house that we did was huge. We had a few of the volunteers come and help us. We mowed, weed eated, pulled weeds, cut down tree limbs, and put them in piles. This yard was a lot of work and the pictures that we took did a bad job at showing the size of the yard. The first house that we did completed 3 hours of our community service. This yard was a lot of fun and it felt good to do something nice for someone!
The second house that we helped clean up was a little bit easier than the first one. We had three other volunteers with us to help us pick weeds. This yard took two hours. The end result was amazing and I love the pond that we uncovered! Once again, it is amazing that we could get people together to help benefit the community! Unfortunately, the blog isn’t letting me attach before and after photos of this one.
The next two hours of my community service were spent picking up the racetrack after the races. This took one hour each night. We had five people helping us both nights. I’m so glad we got to help the people that work at the racetrack because it would take them a long time if it was just them. I wish I would’ve taken pictures of this!
To complete eight hours, Camila and I organized donated clothing at the Kansas Family Advisory Network Closet. There, we took boxes of clothing and inspected the clothes for stains or rips. We got rid of the clothing that was not wearable and then we separated clothing into boxes by gender and size. This was a cool experience and we had fun doing it!
The last hour of my community service was spent helping with the Welcoming Dodge City Plan at enrollment. We helped people fill out surveys about our community. When we were helping, I actually got to meet an OC Alumni who came to southwest Kansas during her internship and fell in love with this part of the state. It was so cool to see an alumni and hear about her experience with her internship.
Overall, I am so glad that I got to give back to the community that has given me so much! It was so rewarding to see the gratitude on people’s faces after we helped them with their yards. I love that helping the community can bring people together!
Rocelyn Miller
