Month: July 2016

Pre Journal

Volunteering is not a new concept for me because I worked voluntarily once when I was in the US. It was three years ago. My experience was very similar to this one. I worked in a garden which grows vegetables and gives these vegetables to the poor people. I planted fruits and vegetables on the field. At night time I and my friends cooked for the poor people and this experience was amazing. You cannot express your feelings with any words when you put a smile to someone else’s face. This moment is priceless. I think SAGE garden trip would be very similar to my last experience. I am looking forward helping, cook and meet new people. We can learn lots of things from these people. We can learn about the other side of the life and the most important thing is we can learn to help each other. Anybody could make a difference in this world. I am sure that as a group we will gain lots of benefits from this activity and as an individual, I am going to help others as much as I can.

After Journal

 This was my second time as doing a volunteering activity and also this one is more meaningful for me than the other one. Working on the field, carrying leafs with a wheelbarrow, picking the crops … These activities were very difficult. However, they were also very funny. We did everything with teamwork. I think being a team player is an amazing is an amazing specialty. I tried to help everybody because I felt that I was doing something right. I knew that my efforts would help people who extremely needs food. For this reason, I gave my best. After we finished our job, I drunk a huge amount of water and this feeling was priceless. For the first time in my life, I had deserved water. One of the volunteers congratulated us and said that we did a good job. I want to express something that impressed me deeply. A couple was working on the field and they were more than 80 years old. My dream is to become like them because in this concept there would always be people who need help. If I would be capable at that age why I won’t help them? In my opinion, volunteering must be the most important value of societies’ life otherwise, our community would be selfish. I am going to express my feelings and experiences to everybody. Even if I could encourage one person about doing volunteering, I would feel very happy.

Murat Zeybeker

06/04/2016

19 July 2016

I was very exciting for this course because it is the first time for me to join volunteering group and serve the community. During last view weeks, we went as volunteering group to different sites that serve the community, especially poor people and senior citizens. Sage garden, soup kitchen, food bank, and helping a family to build their home. First of all, I learned how I can deal with them by smiling and good words, also how I can deal with different people with different behaviors . Secondly, I learned how I can cook some types of food, also how I can prepare the food for a large number of people in short time. Lastly, I learned that we should serve the society as much as we can in different ways. In conclusion, it was a great experience for me because I got a lot of skills that I can’t achieve it without meet different people.

Aziz Alharbi

Last Saturday, we went to help build a house. I thought we would use the hammer and nails and cutting wood. I have never helped build a house so that hammer was the only thing I knew about the building. In addition, I imagined that we would see a semi – built house.

On that day, we were five people out of seven people; four ladies and one guy. When we arrived there, there was no house, and what was there was just the foundation of the house. The guy who met us as soon as we arrived said that house would be finished by March 2017, and that means the owner would wait for eight months. Anyway, we did not use a hammer or nails; we used shovels and wheelbarrows. We put soil in the wheelbarrow and then carried it to a specific place. To be honest, it was not easy, but when I think about the owner and her four little kids, instantly I forgot about that. In fact, it is worth it and I want to go back and help her until the last moment. The owner is an amazing woman, and she deserves that house. She works very hard and thinking about the future of her children very seriously. I can tell that she would sacrifice anything to provide a good life for her angels. I wish the best of luck for her and for everyone who takes a benefit of the opportunity and doing the best as much as possible. I wish I would be available in Corvallis next March to go and see the completed house and see the smiles on their faces.

Unfortunately, this volunteering was the last one for the session one. I am grateful for a friend of mine who told me about that class, and I am grateful also for the INTO staff who allowed me to change my classes to choose this class. Helping people is what makes me feel life inside me, and vice versa. Watching people suffering kills me, and makes me lose my desire to live. I hope all of us; the whole world – no matter what languages we speak or which religion we believe in- cooperate together to help people in need and help each other because we need each other. I hope we can make positive changes, stop the meaningless, silly conflicts, and just end the heartless heinous wars. We will not live here forever; all of us will die someday. So far, I could not understand what the point of all that arguments that happen around us is!  We can share what we have and ease each other’s lives. When it comes to the Habitat for Humanity program, all they need is some of our time. By that way, we would make life easier for those people who need our help. Finally, as the saying goes “As you sow, so shall you reap”. Thus, when you may need an assistant someday, definitely you will find someone to help you if you have already helped someone before.

Ashwaq Alamri  from Saudi Arabia

July 9, 2016

 

MinShuo Hsieh

2016/07/07

Starving is a serious issue in our world, even in developed countries. There are a lot of charities and religious groups that help to reduce the problem. In my country, temples and churches also distribute food to people who need help. Before this volunteering activity, I guessed I would help the Stone Soup Group to do something associating with cooking. I also read that the group has operated over 30 years. This is both impressive and amazing.

On July 7^th, before we began to do our works, we were requested to wash hands thoroughly. Although these foods would be given to people for free, they also cared about food hygiene very much! My works included moving tables and chairs, site preparation, making coffee and hot water, pouring drinks to people and recovering the site. I was very surprised after I realized that they had prepared so many delicious foods, such as salad, bread, rice, salmon, vegetable soup, sweet pie, milk and many kinds of drink. People could even take out food if they wanted. The church is absolutely generous, I really could not believe it.

During the volunteering experience, I was impressed about their attitude. They are all non-profit volunteers, and they work very hard and wonderfully! I am really happy to work with the Stone Soup Group. If I have any opportunity to help hungry people in the future, I will be glad to give my help!

Linn Benton food share

A lot of people live in hunger and they don’t get sufficient food or nutrition, which causes them to suffer and live unhealthy lives. I think that we are all responsible to help these people in getting adequate food and nutrition, in order to improve their lives’ conditions. For me it is my pleasure to have the chance to volunteer in Linn Benton food share, a nonprofit organization that provides multiple services to low income people across Benton and Linn counties, aiming to decrease hunger, and to eliminate it as possible, this organization believes that every human has the right to get his essential needs, and it does achieve its goal through donating food for nonprofit groups.

I was very excited to volunteer in this association and to be able to have the chance to participate in packaging the food to deliver it for people in need, I was really happy to take a hand in making these people lives better and hoped to have the opportunity to meet them and encourage them to stay strong. I was hoping to be able to invite people not to give up, no matter how harder their life is, and to be always faithful to enhance their life and achieve more happiness.

After my volunteering session in this organization, I found that the volunteering was easy job and doesn’t require lots of efforts. However, I enjoyed it especially due to the team work and efforts we had. We helped in sorting the seeds into their different types in order to distribute the food to the poor people. This volunteering activity was entertaining to me, besides it was also very beneficial. I got to know the different types of vegetable and herbs which I did not know before. I had fun in this volunteering but it didn’t meet my expectations. I expected that I we will meet people and serve them food. However, when I thought about what I have done, I realized that I was one chain among all those great people who volunteer and help in fighting hunger.

Areen Khalifa

July 2016