Community Service Self-Article Analysis

While preforming the required community service hours for this coursework, as students we were also asked to read a few articles using SAGE Journals that are related to our experience. The service that I preformed was completed in my own community and found these next three articles appropriate for the services. The first article is an entry from James Griffith’s “A Decade of Helping: Community Service Among Recent High School Graduates Attending College”. Followed by “Volunteer Engagement and Retention: Their Relationship to Community Service Self-Efficacy” by Elizabeth R. Harp, Lisa L. Scherer, and Joseph A. Allen. The last article discussed will be “How does community service promote prosocial behavior? Examining the role of agency ideology …show more content…
Unity in difference or the difference in abilities. Being able to identify these difference and use them to benefit not only oneself, but the group collectively. Having a weird range of talents to choose from helped assign individuals to specific jobs where their time could be used efficiently. It wouldn’t make much sense to have the older people transport heavier boxes, or carry large amount of supplies to different places where needed. I noticed that there were many different age groups while volunteering, kids to grandparents. Symbolic interactionism which is the view of social behavior that emphasizes linguistic or gestural commination was among the top scientific theories I noticed. Showing the children how they could contribute even at such a young age was a great example which I saw on more than one occasion. I think that is a part of symbolic interactionism because the parents would sit down and take time to explain the task at hand to the children.
These examples are just a few things I saw that illustrate these theories. Whether it was everyone working together preparing food, the distribution of talents or teaching children different ways in which they could contribute, it was a humbling …show more content…
Seeing people on sidewalks while holding signs asking for money is a social problem that I’ve noticed more each year. This may be a reason why I make it a point to try and give my time to my community as often as I can. The value of giving my time up to help others was engraved in me from a young age. A social problem that I saw while completing my service hours would be the fact that there weren’t too many super wealthy people helping. I don’t know if there were or not but from what I could see it looked like everyday people that came to help. I don’t come from a lot of money and my perception of community service has always been donation of time. Maybe for the ones who better off financially see community service as donation of money and that contribution is enough. I don’t see either one as bad because they both help the organization but I think doing the physical aspect has a different way of shaping who you are as a person. It can humble someone of wealth to see the hardships that homeless or less fortunate have to endure. Taking food for example seems like a common need but maybe the homeless you served today was the first time he has eaten in a few days. That’s something that money can’t exactly show you or make you