While reviewing my portfolio, I see that my academic and personal growth seem to be very well built and full of experience, unfortunately, my service to others does not seem to be as full or as lengthy as the other two sections. This is something that I really hope to change in the future. I think that my growth in this category will come from experience at my job, in my studies, and in my personal experiences. I do not like the excuse that I do not have time to give my service to others, but, sadly, it is my only response. When the time does permit, I find that I choose being with friends, relaxing at home, or working over giving my time and energy to others. In the past, when I have given my time to others, I have found it enjoyable and fun, as well as a great learning experience. I hope that in the future, this section will grow to just as big, if not bigger, than the other two sections.

          Some of my experiences in serving others in the community include the service learning assignment that we had to complete for OT 306, at Kaleidoscope in Reading. I really enjoyed this experience and I hope that I can go back to Kaleidoscope sometime soon. I worked with Becky Sensenig on this project and we decided that we were going to work with the money management group. The activities we decided to work with the group on was a number recognition BINGO game and a money counting and recognition “shopping trip”. Becky and I planned how we were going to carry out the BINGO game, but when the time came to do it, things were all different, as can be expected. Part of the fun of the game was dealing with the unexpected and being able to respond to it. We graded our game boards down to one and smaller two digit numbers and gave out prizes such as pencils, stickers, small notebooks, and erasers as gifts. For our grocery store game, we cut out different food items and glued them to a card with a price on them. The group was then to pick out the items we indicated, and tried to add up the amount and find the amount of money to give to the “cashier”. What I enjoyed the most from participating in this experience was interacting with the group at Kaleidoscope. All but one was willing and excited to become involved in the activity, and after all were enjoying the activity; he got involved in it as well. It was enjoyable to see the members of the group learn as they went on throughout the activity, and to see the joy on their faces when they would complete the game correctly. I know that I will never forget that experience and how good I know that Becky and I felt as we left the group.

           I have also volunteered at my work, the Pennsburg Manor, in the annual Sunshine Olympics. We had residents from 5 other nursing homes come to compete in the Olympics and we all had a great time. I ran the bowling games with another volunteer. We set up the game and had the resident either sit or stand about 5 feet from the plastic pins. The resident would then bowl the ball. I enjoyed encouraging the residents to get more pins down. Some residents also had some trouble with throwing the ball, so I helped them with that as well. It was such a learning experience for me because the residents that I helped really enjoyed themselves and they had such a competitive sense to beat the other nursing homes that they tried their hardest to do well. You could see the joy on their faces when we would cheer them on. I also helped with the group balloon volleyball game in which all of the residents played. I learned that many of our residents will do anything to win! I really enjoyed giving my time to the Sunshine Olympics.

          I have also volunteered to adopt a resident for the past 5 years during Christmas time at my workplace. The idea is for each resident to receive a gift to open on Christmas morning, that way no one has nothing on Christmas. The past 5 years I have adopted 2 residents a year and anonymously bought Christmas gifts for each of them.