Doing community service isn’t something new to me. All throughout my educational years, I have
already done a lot of such activity—sometimes even outside of school. I participated in feeding programs during
high school, took NSTP courses during my freshman year, and also got involved
in a couple of community services for my Theology subjects. However, our community service for CSRGOVE is
different from the rest I partook in. This time, we, La Sallian students,
partnered up with another organization to achieve the same goal—to help out our
less fortunate brothers and sisters.
Our partner
organization is Concordia Children’s Services (CCS). Honestly, I have never heard of this
organization before. I didn’t even know
such organization exists and I believe it was the same case with the most of my
group mates. But when I found more about
CCS’s goals, I was amazed. I have always
been sympathetic towards street children.
Whenever I see young ones in the streets asking for money, selling
flowers, or what not, I always thought: Where are the parents of these
children? Why are these children not in school? What if they get caught in an
accident? And the worst of all, what will happen when evil strikes these
children’s vulnerability?
I know I
didn’t have the right to judge. After
all, I would never know why such sad situations happen. But as hard as I try not to think this way, I
always end up wanting to blame these street children’s parents. But then, at the back of my head, I also knew
it was because of the lack of education—because of poverty—so I really couldn’t
blame them, could I? Reflecting about this, I realized that maybe, at the end
of the day, there really is such thing as luck.
And if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I’m lucky—maybe even
more than I think I am. This community
service might not have been as “out there” as how it was like in NSTP but it
was a reminder of how I have been taking things for granted. This made that I don’t and will never have
the right to treat the little things like that.
I commend
CCS for being involved in something as beautiful as this—for taking action and
helping the youth who is the future of our society. And in certain ways, they are also helping
other organizations with their Corporate Social Responsibilities. De La Salle University is one, for
example. Without CCS, us La Sallians
would not have been able to contribute in answering such existing problem
involving the youth. Thanks to their
organization, not only was I reminded of my blessings, I was also able to share
the knowledge we have gained from our education.
Honestly
speaking, I was not as inclined about this community service as much as I
wanted and expected myself to because I have been preoccupied by my thesis for
this term. I know it may seem to be an
excuse—maybe it unconsciously even is—but nonetheless, this had been a very
good reminder that instead of wondering, I have to take action if I wanted
change. Instead of wondering about what
might happen to those children or why such situation happened in the first place,
I realized that I should do something about it especially that I am a very
fortunate person. The service learning
was a great reminder that every little thing counts—every bit of what I have
because there are people out there that do not even have a single piece of
it. I may not have been able to exert that
much effort for this CSRGOVE community service, but it definitely sparked
something within me.
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