Service Blog Post

Service can be a two sided sword that can just as easily harm a community as help it. Through volunteering, for example, while a short term service can be supplied, the volunteer removes agency from the community by doing a task for them and possibly making the community dependent on the volunteer's continued assistance. Of course, volunteering is an important aspect of being a part of a community as it supplies manual labor where previously none could be afforded.Volunteers can do the work the community is not willing to pay for yet is important to the well-being of the community. I knew most of this going into the lecture and was unsurprised.

In my high school JROTC unit, we had an annual service learning project where we would gather supplies to donate to a local veterans home. In my last year in the battalion, we were told by the high-ups that we were now meant to do a different project each year as opposed to the same one we'd been doing. However, the home had come to expect our contributions and would be harmed by no longer receiving our donations. In other words, they were now dependent on us and could not function without us. We elected to do two service learning projects so that we could continue to support the home. There is not much that can be done now to help, besides to perhaps wean them off our contributions. The battalion is unlikely to make the same error with future projects.