Intergenerational Service Reflection Paper

For my Intergenerational Service-Learning Project I chose option B. I thought that this was the best choice for me because it gave me the chance to be creative and hands on. I typically enjoy activities and learning in a more hands on setting, so I figured that I would get more out of the project by choosing this option. So, I guess the choice was very easy, but figuring out who I would work with and what we would do was the hard part. The gentleman that I chose to work with on this project name is Roscoe Farrell. He is an older gentleman that lives in the town of Pittsboro, NC and create various things out of wood and metal for people in the town. I came across him by a suggestion of a friend. I told my friend about the project and he remembered …show more content…
I asked him about aging because that’s what I was supposed to learn about through working with him and he gave a pretty great response. He told me that aging is hard, which is what I thought, but when you think about all the good things it ends up not being that bad. HE said it sucks because you can’t really do everything you used to be able to do but you eventually get used to it. It took RF a while to get over the fact that he couldn’t do all the handy work he used to do. He is a typical southern man very independent and does everything himself and he does it the best. He said once he retired and had nothing to do he went around fixing everything and making tons of new stuff for around the house. His arthritis got worse so he wasn’t able to do that as much and more or fix things as easy around the house. Now if something goes wrong he calls his son to come over and fix it, he told me that using a family member to help out for the stuff he can’t do anymore makes it easier because that’s what family is for. Now every couple weeks if his arthritis isn’t flaring up he build stuff for friends or for around the house but if a lot happens at once he needs help. He told that once I get to that point it is better to just let people who are willing help. It makes it a whole lot easier on yourself and people close to you. They get frustrated when you don’t let them help and you …show more content…
It was a bit more work than I hoped for just because I have a lot of other work and stuff going on, but I really did enjoy it. I learned that getting old isn’t going to be as bad as I thought. I’m a very active person and when I thought about getting old, I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to do anything, but going through this process showed me that even with some physical limitations I can still do things. Through this process I also got a good insight into relationships and how they’ve developed over a long time. I love hanging out with my friends and hate not hanging out with someone. RF is still really good friends with the people he was good friends with in high school and he gave me some advice on how to keep them. Hopefully if I follow it my best friends and I will still be best friends in 50 years. If I had to do it all over again I would prefer to just have to present it and write some journal entries. I really struggle with trying to get what’s in my mind onto paper I do better explaining by talking. It was a once in a life time experience and I am happy to have gotten the chance to experience