Community hours

I’ve always been the type of person who loves to help out.  Weather it was at my school or at church or even if I just felt like going to my local food bank, volunteering has always been a part of my life.  When I found out I had to complete ten hours of community service I wasn’t at all worried about how I was going to complete those hours. I had lots of options I work at my church our lady of Guadalupe where I was starting a Vacation Bible School and having my own booth at our annual Jamaica.

The Vacation Bible School was a complete challenge itself! I had absolutely no experience when it came to it. I mean I had never even gone to one before! It took nearly a month of decorating and another month of preparing lessons and crafts.  With that being said, it was all so worth it. I never thought I would feel so relived after it was over; I actually wanted it too last longer! All the long nights and long hours of preparation definitely paid off. Seeing all the kids’ faces when they would sing along with the songs, or when they discovered Jonah and his whale, when they would make a craft it was amazing! While I watched and took pictures of the kids I was just so amazed to see how happy and excited they were. It made me realize that those 68 days, those 1,632 hours (If not more) of work was worth those 10 hours of fun.

Of course I also wanted at least half of my community hours to go towards the Jamaica. Now if you don’t know what a Jamaica is, well it pretty much like a giant party with lots of great food lots of junk food and lots of games for kids to play! This year I was in charge of having the elementary booth which consisted of 3 jumpers, 4 games, face paint, balloon animals, and a concession stand. Now if that doesn’t sound like a lot just wait until I tell you the variety of junk food we had. We had from bacon covered hit dogs, chilindrinas, candy, snow cones, and our most popular pinaple heavens! The Jamaica was the most exhausting thing a person could ever do! I took nearly a week of preparation and we nearly spent 22 hours at the booth. Again it was all worth it! We raised enough money to start our elementary program on time, and that has completely made those 22 hours of labor all worth it.

I enjoyed being able to do what I love while helping my church. My volunteerism has been very rewarding for me this summer and I can’t wait to start more of my future volunteer programs at my church.