57) Find community service to take part in

No one likes a lazy ass.
So when I found out I would be staying in Jersey during the summer
I searched for some sort of employment.
My standards refused to let me work in fast food.
My lack of a license kept me from jobs not reachable by bus.
My trust in the economy failed to supply me a paying gig.

Luckily for me, my church hosted a summer camp this year.
Well, it was more of an enrichment camp;
u kno, wit chil'rens learnin nd stuf.
Obviously, I was scooped up to be the kids' English teacher, or tutor rather.
Unlikely for me, it was not a paying position due to a lack of funds from the state.
I only decided to do it because it would occupy my time.
But again luckily for me,
this meant my community service challenge was about to be fulfilled.
I didn't even realize it until I was 2 weeks away from finishing up
when my mother mentioned that I could put it on my resume as community service.
I swear, she's more of a genius than I am.

Doing it to boost rep.

Why was community service so important to put on my 101 list?
Simply put, I have been able to dodge it any other time
and I started to feel bad about it.
At my high school we had this thing called Spring Phase.
Basically it's the last month of school devoted to one activity-like-class. We were to complete community service as a class at least one year.
However, I dodged it by being one of the few kids
to work on the literary magazine every year during Spring Phase.

At some point I decided to assign myself a reason for being against community service.
Reason 1) I shouldn't be forced into it. I should want to give back freely.
Reason 2) I may be black but I'm not felon given a clean up sentence.
Reason 3) I'm not privileged or established enough to give back to anyone.
Even in high school I was such a load of shit.
I went to catholic/private school all my life.
There was something I could have imparted
to my inner-city youth public school counterparts.

As I look back, there was probably some dope ass scholarship I could have received for being such a valuable memorable of the Newark community or something.
Fiddlesticks.

No, I have not participated in community service while at Loyola either.
Loyola has a program called Spring Break Outreach
where white kids (and a few minorities sprinkled in to help bridge the gap)
go to underprivileged cities along the east coast and south
and pitch in, in whatever way they can.
Usually spots include: Gulf Coast of New Orleans; Ivanhoe, Va; Baltimore, MD; Camden, NJ; and Newark, NJ.
I kid you not, look at the website.
How can I feel compelled to help out a city on the same list as my own?
Suddenly my third reason for ditching community service felt justified.

Doing it to boost album sales.

Honestly, who knows how long it would have taken me to find a city or organization
to help out with if I hadn't stumbled
upon this opportunity.
It probably would have been the last thing on my list to be completed. haha

But how do I feel
now that I've completed my service?
I'm not inspired to donate my time like crazy...
but I suppose I wouldn't turn down an invitation
or a good cause to go out and help. You do end up with a nice accomplished feeling.
What is that lame line elders always tell us?
It's better to give than to receive.
As far as help goes,
I'd have to say that's a pretty true statement.
Pretty true, indeed.
Word.


Oh yeah and if you want to read what tutoring kids was like, click here.