I can't believe how quickly this ASB week went by!! I've seen endless tweets, pictures, Facebook posts, and blog postings about all the different trips, and I am completely blown away. Not only was there a record-breaking number of students involved with ASB this year, but they are STILL talking about it!! As someone who has dealt with student retention with other organizations in the past, I'm so excited for ASB that everyone is riding this "ASB service high"- and I'm guilty of it myself!!
This week was great. For the grad students, it went really quickly. The snow delayed our departure and the Easter holiday caused us to leave Friday, but we had some really incredibly and reflection-packed experiences in a short amount of time we were in Iowa City. Each of our three service sites- Johnson County Senior Center, Habitat for Humanity, and the Hope Lodge- brought something new and different for us to experience.
At the senior center, health topics of the elderly were brought to our attention. We made some very real human connections with the guests there. It brought up the topic of elder abuse, made us think about generational differences and how that might affect how we take care of our parents in the future, and thought about how the community and state policies can affect the elderly.
Then, we went to Habitat for Humanity. Holy cow, that was work. Sanding all the walls and ceilings, mudding, and fixing fences kept us incredibly busy. We met a family from the Congo who was working on their "sweat equity" for their habitat home. This time our service was manual labor. It was nice to be physically doing something and building something (or remodeling in this case!) for someone else. Our participants appreciated their own homes, parents, and lifestyles much more after working on the habitat home.
At the Hope Lodge, each of us brought something different away. We met a lot of cancer patients and guests there which brings up all sorts of discussions about life, death, health, end of life care, etc. for all of us health people. For me, this service site reassured the fact that I want to work in the non-profit sector. The director was incredibly inspiring, has the same degree I'm working towards, and was a great resource.
But beyond all of these things, our week really inspired me and kept me in awe of the students at the University of Missouri. Every year I've been here (and yes, I'm pretty old and have been here for a while!), I've had these moments where I am in complete and utter amazement of our students at Mizzou. This is another one of those moments.
There were 426 students out, during spring break, giving up their time, energy, and money to do service across our nation. They weren't in Panama City or another typical spring break location doing the things parents want to pretend don't happen there. They were actively seeking opportunities to push themselves into situations where they would learn from another person. These students sought out talking about difficult topics and participated in reflecting about what they had learned each day. They are who are going to change our world for the better.
Thank you to the ASB Exec, Bryan, their advisor, all my participants and co-site leader, and everyone else involved with ASB in some capacity or another. Students of Mizzou, you have once again amazed me. I can't wait to see where this organization will go in the future.
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