Service Reflection

For my service hours I did two different activities.

The first activity I did was the transition program. The transition program is a program hosted by the department of Special Education at Lewis University. It was every other Monday from noon till 1pm. The program pairs up college students with college age students at the special education classes at the Lincoln Way schools. These kids are in a transition program, they still live with their parents until they are 22 and still go to school a bit but they are also starting to work in the real world. Dr.Sloan, who is also the director of Best Buddies, is in charge of this program for Lewis. The statement is as such very similar. The idea is making friends. Despite difference it is about making genuine friendships and having a good time with each other. We always met up in the courtyard. With the exception of myself, all of the other volunteers were special education majors or doubled in elementary education and special education. There were usually one or two males volunteer (including myself), although the students we worked with were split gender wise. Mostly we just played games like UNO or connect four. I loved the experience. The kids we worked with were of vastly ranging levels of functioning. Some kids needed a lot of help and we would need to help them find the washrooms. Other kids were very high functioning. If you saw them in public you might not know they had a major intellectual disability. I was surprised that I had genuine conversations about movies and food with them every time. Our culture likes to stigmatize them as being so different but the truth is there is more in common than what is different. One of the kids I worked with I really got along with well. He was a really happy 19 year old. He wore a Spiderman hoodie and he loved superheroes. I am a huge comic nerd. So we spent about a half hour talking about superheroes. He was just a real pleasant guy to spend time with, his positivity lifted my own spirits. Another experience I remember was one that shocked me. There was one student. He was 18 and just entered the transition program recently. He said he wish he could go to college. This was the first time I ever encountered some one in the program being aware of their own limits. It really shook me up. Every one of us are lucky. We have the abilities to shape our world. No matter what our original circumstances we can work to become smarter, stronger and more successful. Some people have limits and this was an uncomfortable thought I did not think about hard and long until this experience. I would definitely like to do more service work like this in the future. I realized that I had a lot of stereotypes but I worked with past them and realized that they were just that: stereotypes. When I move to Chicago I might try to work with a local chapter of best buddies or something similar.

The other work I did was with Free Geek Chicago. Free Geek Chicago is an organization with a mission of making technology available to everyone. It is a democratically ran, community lead, organization in Logan Square. They recycle old computers, resale old parts, puts together new computers and distribute them to those in need. They also educate people who do not know much about computers and have a build program (different from pure volunteer that I did) that allows people to work up to making their own computer. For middle income households, a desktop is a expectation. However, it is still as need in low income households but not all families have one. Free Geek goal is allow every family to have their own personal computer (“Free Geek”). The place is out of a cyber punk novel. The place is very much punk in itself. It in the basement of a building. You enter on the alley and go down steep stairs with a low ceiling and the only light bulb is flickering. Once in the basement, you are surrounded by row after rows of computers and parts. Free Geek teachers people about how to build computers and while they gain this skill they work on computers that are given to various charities. The volunteer group was diverse. People of every race and age (the minimum age is 14 but there were many kids who looked younger) where there. One of the lead volunteers, an older African American women, never had a computer before she learned about this place. She now is one of the lead volunteers and it has helped become more completive in the job market. She is not the stereotypical geek. Yet her knowledge and skill are enormous. Free Geek is about that: inclusion. It wants everyone to embrace their inner geekiness. I am planning to volunteer their more. They have open hacks where people can come in and learn to code that I am planning to help out with one day. I talked to Dr.Klump about having Lewis Comp Sci students volunteer there as well. It is nice being able to use specialized skills to help out. 

Works Cited

"FreeGeek Chicago." Free Geek. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2015.