Washington D.C Service Trip

Hello everyone, For my senior act of service I decided to go on the Washington D.C service trip. I thought it would be a new and possibly challenging experience to go to a new environment such as D.C and preform various acts of community service. In Rhode Island, I have preformed multiple acts of community service and they have all had different impacts on my life. While in D.C, I realized my favorite kind of service act is working at soup kitchens or anything having to do with giving food to the homeless and hungry. Since there are not as many homeless/hungry people in Rhode Island, Washington D.C was a completely new experience and was actually very fun. My expectations for this trip were at an average level but from the moment we got there they seemed to continue to increase. The atmosphere in the city of D.C was a new and fresh and I especially liked walking around and discovering the city during the nights that we were there. However, the trip definitely kicked off after we were assigned our tasks for the week at YSOP.

Our service started off the second day we got there and I was in a team with Mrs. DiChiaro, Jill, Chelsea, Eliza, and Alex. We named our team S.O.S (Share Our Service) and we were told that we were going to be working with food all week. I had never worked at any sorts of soup kitchens before so I was a bit nervous but it actually turned out to be the most rewarding and enjoyable acts of community service I have ever done before. The places we served at were: S.O.M.E (So Others May Eat), Food for Friends, and DC Kitchen. Unfortunately, we missed the day we were going to go to the local food bank which was one I was looking forward to because I like working at food banks. I must say the most inspirational and enthusiastic place we served at was S.O.M.E. The fact that everyone was cheerful and eager to work towards a common goal in serving many homeless/hungry people of D.C made it so much more of a great experience for us as volunteers at a place we had never been before. After the first few minutes, we felt as if we were back at home and not hundreds of miles away. With that, I took away a gratitude filled experience. This made me think that if every place were just as enjoyable I would want to volunteer there all the time which helps them a lot. With welcoming and grateful people, comes a better volunteer outcome which (in this case) helped feed hundreds of people. If every organization can be like S.O.M.E then I feel as though people would volunteer more and problems such as hunger would be solved in a faster and more precise manner.

I am grateful and beyond impressed about the quality of this trip. If I could find soup kitchens in Rhode Island like the ones we serviced at in D.C I would volunteer more often which is among one of my goals for the next month.

Thank you all for such a memorable experience!

~Nikki F.