Being a member of the Appalachia Volunteers of Boston College has been one of my most defining experiences in the past 2 and a half years. The Appalachia Volunteers Program is a yearlong program than includes weekly Sunday night meetings based on the program’s mission “to love, learn, and serve” and culminates in a weeklong service trips to the Appalachian region and beyond. Through both the meetings and my experiences on these service trips I have gained new perspectives and learned more about myself than I had ever thought possible and I will be forever grateful for that.
Love is all around. The Appalachia Volunteers Program introduced me to the concept of agape, and showed me this unconditional, selfless love first hand. In our meetings …show more content…
The goal is not to go on these service trips to fix people, but rather to stand with them in solidarity. We are all bound together if we choose to be, and the mere act of sitting with someone as she tells you her story can have a much more profound effect than monetary resources. Throughout the year our meetings work to educate us on what we will see while on our service trips; however, nothing can fully prepare us. One of our speakers last year chose to focus his talk on stereotypes. After asking us to tell him some stereotypes we have heard about the Appalachian region, he shared a quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete”. This quote resonated with me and since then I have seen its validity more times than one. While in Hollywood, SC last March my group worked with a man named Honey. Honey is the town handy man in Hollywood. He does all the painting, planting, roofing, and everything in between. If something is broken you can be sure than Honey can fix it. He is almost 50 years old and cannot read, meaning our supervisor in Hollywood was not able to leave him written instructions, which often lead to miscommunication between the two of them. Honey had his first child when he was still a teenager, and then watched all 5 of his children do the same thing. Honey and his family are examples of the cycle of poverty that people all across the world live in every single day, and we witness while on these service trips. Honey is also a tremendously hard worker who loves to crack jokes. He taught us how to use complex power tools and was a constant source of encouragement the entire week we worked with him. Honey is much more than a
Love is all around. The Appalachia Volunteers Program introduced me to the concept of agape, and showed me this unconditional, selfless love first hand. In our meetings …show more content…
The goal is not to go on these service trips to fix people, but rather to stand with them in solidarity. We are all bound together if we choose to be, and the mere act of sitting with someone as she tells you her story can have a much more profound effect than monetary resources. Throughout the year our meetings work to educate us on what we will see while on our service trips; however, nothing can fully prepare us. One of our speakers last year chose to focus his talk on stereotypes. After asking us to tell him some stereotypes we have heard about the Appalachian region, he shared a quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete”. This quote resonated with me and since then I have seen its validity more times than one. While in Hollywood, SC last March my group worked with a man named Honey. Honey is the town handy man in Hollywood. He does all the painting, planting, roofing, and everything in between. If something is broken you can be sure than Honey can fix it. He is almost 50 years old and cannot read, meaning our supervisor in Hollywood was not able to leave him written instructions, which often lead to miscommunication between the two of them. Honey had his first child when he was still a teenager, and then watched all 5 of his children do the same thing. Honey and his family are examples of the cycle of poverty that people all across the world live in every single day, and we witness while on these service trips. Honey is also a tremendously hard worker who loves to crack jokes. He taught us how to use complex power tools and was a constant source of encouragement the entire week we worked with him. Honey is much more than a