The Presence needed for Good Service
The world is filled with a range of communities and a part of life is being able to interact within those communities around you. As humans, we have the opportunities to dedicate ourselves and our time to help those in need. But how do people become aware of the problems of communities they may not be a part of? People can get involved in service work from helping to pick up trash on beaches, to combat climate change, or to tutor underprivileged kids, but it takes more to reach out to investigate what is happening around you. I have questioned, what value does service work have if a person who volunteers just “shows up” to do the job asked of them? When people say “yes” to volunteering, what exactly are those people saying “yes” to? When it comes to resumes, high school, or job applications, people see that it is almost a requirement to volunteer. It is ironic to have to fill a certain amount of hours of service work, and it is at this point that makes it more so a type of chore. As I have started to do work with Water Drop LA, an organization that distributes water and resources to skid row, I have started to navigate my own role in handing out water and on how one can become a leader surrounding the ideology of power dynamics. People, when they are not present in the work and treating it more as a chore, may think that getting involved with the minimum amount of community service work is enough of a benefit. However, an act of good service actually requires one to develop a deep understanding and education with the focus of a critical service learning approach because it allows one to gain the ability to see the value that service holds in order for one to be a true agent of change.
With my past experience of service, I felt defeated when I faced huge issues, like climate change, as I did not feel as though I could make an impact or even a small indentation in the right direction. I do not believe I was mentally present or completely engaged in the service work that I partook in. Surrounding the stresses of applying to colleges, I felt my peers stumbling around trying to get as much volunteer work as they could so their resumes looked acceptable. It was just another bullet point to add to their list. Does this even count as service work if there is no intention and little care for others? It feels wrong to treat the work like a job, where your body follows along but you are not necessarily thinking about what you are doing or changing. The end goal was college, not to change the policies of an unjust system. There was no need to understand why one even had to do the work, or what was trying to be fixed as it was only going to be a temporary thing.
By implementing critical service learning, I believe that one can achieve presence in their service and make their time more beneficial.When I say mentally present, I mean that your mind is engaged with the people surrounding you and not on ‘auto-pilot’ like it could be if there was another goal in mind, quite like the goal of simply getting the credits needed for this Writ 150 class. There is a clear effort being made to treat the service analytically so one can get the most out of their time learning. The presence comes from constantly analyzing actions towards others and the positive or negative impact it may have as one learns from the overall process and does not dissociate from it. Critical service learning, as stated by Tana Mitchell, “describes academic service learning experience with a social justice orientation where students see themselves as agents of social change”(Mitchell). It is a cycle of reflection working to redistribute power and develop authentic relationships in an understanding of helping beyond individual needs, which triggers critical thinking and reasoning skills. Through critical service learning, it allows one to acknowledge that “injustice has created the need for service in the first place.” The time spent on service is more valuable if one dedicates their whole selves, their mind, body and soul, to the practice, otherwise what truly is the point if not to enact systematic change?
Volunteering with Water Drop has allowed me to gain presence by beginning to understand how being educated on the roots of issues in the community is crucial, and how overall it is to aim for the long term solutions. Unlike before, I have gone through a steady process by being educated on Skid Row before easing into direct volunteer work. The lack of affordable housing is the leading cause of homelessness and solutions such as LA’s shelters are not ideal with the abuse, lack of safety, and unsanitariness that these shelters are composed of. The prison to homelessness pipeline and the stereotypes of the homeless surrounding mental illness and addiction need to be addressed. It would have been significantly different to go to Skid Row without the training and knowing these things beforehand because my bias, conscious, or uncious thoughts of homelessness and the stereotypes surrounding homelessness would be prominent. It would take longer for me to adjust myself just from what I see with only direct volunteer work as I do not see behind the scenes or how one of the largest populations of homelessness came to be. Service would be pointless if not understanding the roots of these problems as one would just run a continuum of service with no end. With seeing these realities, I have become closer to understanding what it must be like to live in such harsh living conditions along with the frustration that must be felt with being perceived by a singular story. It is “the action/reflection dynamic of critical service learning pedagogy” that I believe constitutes a special mindfulness when volunteering and “encourages contemplation on both personal and institutional contributions to social problems and measures that may lead to social change”. By changing my thought process in this way, I know that I can become closer to spending every second of the time I dedicate to service work in the most beneficial way to help and put my full mind towards change.
Once one understands the bigger picture and has experiences with the community they are helping, it brings out the sense of humanity in the good service working towards the future. During my first service of water drop, I was paired up with a rather enthusiastic man whose energy I thought could blow me away. There was no denying that he is truly passionate and engaged in every second of his time with the Water Drop Community. The whole construct of power dynamics in service work that is always in the back of my mind was eliminated by his presence. How is it that I just met this person, and he has already had such a positive impact on me? What would it take to achieve this level of consciousness? We would be driving past, and he would notice the people I never even saw hand out water to, driven to not miss a single person, greeting each as “ my friend.” I understood that he had been volunteering with Water Drop for a while, which of course above education, the more direct time spent doing Water Drop, the deeper the connection and understanding someone like I can make. Without getting overwhelmed with the issue of homelessness as a whole, I saw that this man was such a light in many people’s lives that day, socially and physically and the perfect example of spending every minute achieving good service.
Although I have volunteered once, I have much to learn to be like my partner in water drop. My time spent volunteering will now get me to enact change sooner because I am thinking in a different way. People can spend their time volunteering to feed the endless continuum of service to others, or they can become present to realize how the service stems from a systematic problem where they can aim to stop the cycle. People could continue to hand out water forever, or they can attack the origin of homelessness to end the need to hand out the water. It helps one go beyond the level of knowledge that they have, for instance, to see that a solution put in place by society to fix a problem, such as LA’s homeless shelters, are actually not beneficially impacting the community.When people say ‘yes’ to service, they are saying ‘yes’ to being one that can hold the power to transform systems for the individual and for the whole. Time is the most important thing that people need to enact change, so when getting involved with communities, it is good service not to waste a second of that time not being fully engaged as there is much work to be done in order to create a brighter future. People have the potential to be more than pawns, but to be a leader in offering their own proposals for these problems that create a collective mind with others to be successful in attacking these structures and homelessness head on.
