Volunteering for St. Elizabeth's

I recently started volunteering at St. Elizabeth’s school in Baltimore. St. Elizabeth’s is a school for teenagers and young adults with special needs. I have signed up to volunteer my time once a week for two hours to assist in different classes. My first experience there was quit interesting. I had a rough start, but finish the day successfully. I was extremely nervous and had no idea what to expect.
My experience started off a little rocky because I was in a car accident on the way to the school. I side swiped with another car right in front of St. Elizabeth's. I was extremely upset and was not sure if I wanted to volunteer that day. It turned out the woman I was in the crash with was one of the teachers I was volunteering for. I was very nervous because it was not a good first impression. Finally when everything settled down I decided to go in and start to help. I am so happy I did because I had such a great experience.
The first class I went to was reading. The students were reading little passages about sports and I was told to help the students sound out words. I helped by sounding out each word. I also helped by going over the sound each letter of the alphabet made. It was a little frustrating that most of them could not get it right away, but once I tried to be a little more patient with them, I saw positive results!
The next class I helped out with was writing. On Friday’s the children play all different types of games. This week the game we played was Wheel of Fortune. It was extremely challenging because all of the kids had various disability. Some looked as if nothing was wrong, where as others were in wheel chairs or had physical deformities. The teacher asked me if I could help the children distinguish vowels from consents. I found it extremely difficult to get their attention. After patient and continuous efforts though, I felt as if I was making a difference. I made good friends with a little boy named Bryan and it turned out he won the game. I was having so much fun when all of the sudden the bell rang for the next period.
After writing I went to a social studies class. Some students were coloring different countries flags, while others were trying to locate different states on our map. For this class I was assigned to help one individual. Chase is sixteen years old and he is autistic. He gets very frustrated when he does not understand things and his teacher explained that is very important to spend one on one time with him. He was having trouble locating different states on a map. He keep telling me that he could not do it and was never going to be able to find the states. I helped him remember the locations by little tricks I was taught when I was little. He started to catch on after awhile and was definitely improving! It made me feel so good that I was making a difference.
Father Kolvenbach speech illustrated many points that I hope to convey through my volunteering experience. I definitely agree with his statement that Solidarity is learned through “contact” rather than “concept” (Kolvenbach, 3). I found this especially true with my experiences with St. Elizabeth’s students. I did not realize what it was like to help special needs children until I actually did it!
This job was extremely challenging, but was worth all the work. It took patient and I loved every minute of it. While I was there to help educate the students I found that they taught me a great deal about life. I learned that sometimes patient is the key to learning. I also saw that I can truly make a difference in the lives of those who may be less fortunate than me. When I went back to Loyola I had all kinds of feelings running through my body. It felt good to make a difference and I knew this was the volunteer opportunity for me!