Personal Reflective Essay: Volunteering At Home

I first began working at my local church garden because I was interested in the gardening itself. The man in charge of it, Mike Knutson, made an announcement at church one Sunday. He said that they were in desperate need of volunteers. I thought it sounded like fun, and I’ve always wanted to learn how to grow my own garden. This seemed like a great learning opportunity, and I wanted to help them out. I thought I’d go for a couple of weeks; however, I’d never thought that I would decide to volunteer once nearly every week for the past three summers. I learned that there is a lot more to volunteering at the garden than simply gardening: I was helping people and making new friends. There is also an immense sense of accomplishment. When Mike died in 2016, I had yet another reason to continue working there; I was also working for him.
My first day working at the garden I was completely clueless about what to do. When I was younger I used …show more content…
Everytime we picked vegetables, we weighed it, and then we sent it to places around our country where people would benefit from it. These places included the food shelf and multiple assisted living communities. This aspect of gardening feels so amazing. The produce we provide helps put healthy fresh food on people’s tables; these are people who, otherwise, would not have access to this kind of food, either because they can’t afford it, or because they are physically unable to go and buy it. I remember one time, I brought some rhubarb that I harvested from my garden to an assisted living community. I set the bags on a table, and a elderly woman came up to me with a huge smile on her face. She was extremely excited and said that she was going to use the rhubarb to make rhubarb pie. She continued “I haven't made rhubarb pie in years. Thank you.” Her excitement and happiness filled me with joy. I love that I play a part in helping these