Project Reflection

http://www.havenforhope.org/new/

What I’ve learned in this course is that humanity can go a long way. One person acting alone can’t do much but many acting together can change the world.

  This semester we took on a project as a group which firstly started as something we had to do but ended up being something we all really enjoyed. Of course, in the beginning it was hard for any of us to commit to doing anything but as we learned more about what being civically engaged really meant the easier it became to get volunteers. In the end we all thought it would be good for us to bring awareness to the problem of homelessness.

  This project first took us to Haven for Hope which is a nonprofit agency that has eighty five individual entities located within itself. The sole purpose of all of these agencies is to help people try to reenter mainstream society. Yes, there are other agencies that claim and want to do the same thing but how many of them do this entirely for free. Not one cent is charged to any of the people looking for help at Haven for Hope. This is where we definitely noticed how they separated themselves from all the other agencies. Another aspect that is unique to them is that many of the staff are still homeless and live on sight. Their approach is to help from within and at the same time make the new people coming in feel more at ease since they are dealing with other homeless persons like themselves. As a group we put a lot of time here doing various jobs in order to try and make a difference. In the end I think it opened our eyes to the fact that if just four can make a difference in people’s lives as we did then what about if we had many or thousands.

  Haven for Hope is the agency that really helped us put our project together. All the staff was more than willing to accommodate us in any way we needed. They gave us flyers and pamphlets and gave us phone numbers of other agencies to contact that could do the same. Julian, a coordinator at Haven told us that they needed more people like us to help and that we really made a difference.

  What I personally took away from this project is a sense that I really helped some people with the hours I volunteered. It made me look differently at homeless people and the less fortunate and made me realize that I too could become homeless rather easily with the right circumstances. I feel civic engagement now after the semester is over that it is not a term to be defined but rather an ACTION to do. This has motivated me to do more in my community and to volunteer more. The great feeling I had after as well as knowing I made a difference in someone’s life is priceless. I encourage everybody to get out more and make a change. Even with one person, change is possible especially if your'e a RATTLER!.