December 2015 - Blog Post 2

1. On December 23, 2015, family and I volunteered at Urban Ministry as part of the Triad Hindu Temple. We made and served food to the homeless people, set up tables for people to eat at, and cleaned up afterwards. This was a fun experience because we got to help out those in need with a special holiday dinner and come together as a group.
2. I developed the thinker, communicator, open-minded, risk-taker, and caring IB learner profile attributes through this experience. I had to think about where help was needed and how I could best incorporate my assistance to benefit the people we were serving. I had to communicate with other people in the kitchen about tasks and the agenda for the night. I had to be more open-minded because I was assigned duties I was not familiar with but that needed help with. I had to take risks because I worked many sharp and hot objects, which was pretty unusual for me to be around because my parents typically do that sort of task at home. I had to be more caring towards the homeless people because I wanted to show that my sole purpose there was to help.
3. I got to make and serve food to the homeless people. I helped with creating the ingredients for meals and putting meals together. I helped with pouring drinks into pitchers and pouring the pitchers into cups. I also helped with the setup of the tables by putting chairs out and cleaning the dining room so it would be clean for the people we were serving. I also helped clean up at the end of the night by cleaning the dining room, kitchen, and all the resources used.
4. Of the seven learning outcomes, I addressed numbers two, three, four, five, and seven. I need to address one and six because in the future, I need to be able to help out with larger and more global problems to make a larger impact on the future and on issues.
5. This experience was an amazing experience because I got to help out many people who were in need of nourishment but lacked the necessary resources. I enjoyed being able to help out in different areas because it was fun doing different tasks and experiencing different things. It was saddening to see how many citizens were in need but it was great seeing the large number of volunteers and the huge amount of effort that went into this successful operation. This was something my family and I had done when I was younger but we slowly drifted away from this because holidays became more hectic as my brother and I grew older so it was nice being able to reunite with this beautiful tradition.