Summer and Ongoing Life Community Serve: Senior Center and Sunday School
Villa Rancho Senior Center is the place where I have started to volunteer my time each Saturday. On Sundays, as you know, I teach Sunday School for preschool and kindergarten. I am seeing it as a way to give back to the community, but also give my heart and soul a revival.
I used to be completely afraid of Senior centers. In fact, I would get anxious, scared, or completely disturbed by all of the elderly walking around, or illnesses and changes, and limitations and heavy chaos permeating throughout an entire complex. My grandmother and my grandfather on my mom's side were placed in senior centers when they became unfit to live on their own anymore. I was horrified. I thought it was going to be a huge mistake. I was opened to a world wherein in which community service and profession coincide, where employees and individuals are family. This was a world, I had long since limited myself from because maybe if I didn't know nor care, or set foot in there, I would be none the wiser.
As both my grandparents aged at separate times, and when I went to visit them at their perspective centers during their transition, the fears evaporated. The fear I held at the time and maybe still do, is my own. I didn't like DEATH then and I don't like it now. That was it. Not the center, not the people running it, or the putrid smells, or the weird music playing in 4B, no, it was because I didn't want to face the reality. One day, we too will grow old as well and die. Death is a part of life as they say. Whoa, okay way to lay it on heavy here guys, but it's true. And that reality was something I wanted to face head on without hesitation. I was searching for ways to give back to my community in addition to teaching and I found it up the street close to home. I found my summer serve in an area where folks wanted someone they could count on each week to show up and show them they aren't alone.
Each time I go to serve there or at teaching, I leave feeling less lonely, happier, more able to problem solve or trouble shoot my stresses, and it gets me out of my comfort zone too. The seniors there have their own unique personalities and energies where you can't help, but giggle and smile- although aging is the pits, you can still laugh about it with them so they forget that little reality for awhile. The kids I teach are wild and crazy, which gives me an energy, I quickly remember to loosen up a little and learn to simplify explanations or better yet, talk less ; ), listen to them talk!
The volunteers and myself at the senior center serve the seniors snacks, play music, serve coffee and juice, paint their nails, play cards or chess, talk to them, walk the building with them, make jokes, and routinely establish a lasting presence and rapport with each one. I get the opportunity to speak Spanish with those who speak it, and cannot speak English, the chance to goof off with the sarcastic goofballs, and be a listening ear to the ones who have no one to talk to anymore. The volunteers at Sunday School help with the lesson, clean up toys, sing worship songs with us teachers and sit with kids, help them find a bathroom, etc. All of these things are welcomed distractions for a heart that just keeps giving and working towards committing to serving the community I am in. I hope to continue serving wherever I am, wherever I go. Hey maybe, just maybe, I will get over that death fear one day!
I used to be completely afraid of Senior centers. In fact, I would get anxious, scared, or completely disturbed by all of the elderly walking around, or illnesses and changes, and limitations and heavy chaos permeating throughout an entire complex. My grandmother and my grandfather on my mom's side were placed in senior centers when they became unfit to live on their own anymore. I was horrified. I thought it was going to be a huge mistake. I was opened to a world wherein in which community service and profession coincide, where employees and individuals are family. This was a world, I had long since limited myself from because maybe if I didn't know nor care, or set foot in there, I would be none the wiser.
(Pictured here with me is everyone's favorite jokester, Dewey)
As both my grandparents aged at separate times, and when I went to visit them at their perspective centers during their transition, the fears evaporated. The fear I held at the time and maybe still do, is my own. I didn't like DEATH then and I don't like it now. That was it. Not the center, not the people running it, or the putrid smells, or the weird music playing in 4B, no, it was because I didn't want to face the reality. One day, we too will grow old as well and die. Death is a part of life as they say. Whoa, okay way to lay it on heavy here guys, but it's true. And that reality was something I wanted to face head on without hesitation. I was searching for ways to give back to my community in addition to teaching and I found it up the street close to home. I found my summer serve in an area where folks wanted someone they could count on each week to show up and show them they aren't alone.
Each time I go to serve there or at teaching, I leave feeling less lonely, happier, more able to problem solve or trouble shoot my stresses, and it gets me out of my comfort zone too. The seniors there have their own unique personalities and energies where you can't help, but giggle and smile- although aging is the pits, you can still laugh about it with them so they forget that little reality for awhile. The kids I teach are wild and crazy, which gives me an energy, I quickly remember to loosen up a little and learn to simplify explanations or better yet, talk less ; ), listen to them talk!
The volunteers and myself at the senior center serve the seniors snacks, play music, serve coffee and juice, paint their nails, play cards or chess, talk to them, walk the building with them, make jokes, and routinely establish a lasting presence and rapport with each one. I get the opportunity to speak Spanish with those who speak it, and cannot speak English, the chance to goof off with the sarcastic goofballs, and be a listening ear to the ones who have no one to talk to anymore. The volunteers at Sunday School help with the lesson, clean up toys, sing worship songs with us teachers and sit with kids, help them find a bathroom, etc. All of these things are welcomed distractions for a heart that just keeps giving and working towards committing to serving the community I am in. I hope to continue serving wherever I am, wherever I go. Hey maybe, just maybe, I will get over that death fear one day!
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