COMMUNITY SERVICE

By
Nancy West

Community Service Systems

CSV320

Siena Heights University

Tia I. Miller, M.A. Instructor

September 15th, 2014

Community service is performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions. There are different types of community service and is not always done voluntarily. Although the community service I did was on a volunteer basis for the class that I’m taking at Siena Heights University.
The volunteer sight I went to was called Love Inc. and the Inc stands for In the Name of Christ. I was blessed to have found a volunteer service in my own community in Pullman MI. I had heard of it before and had driven pass there many times but never stopped. When I went I met some really important people who also work and volunteer there. The Coordinator was named Ann Hatfield. Prior to me going there I had called and explained to her what I needed and she immediately said YES and welcomed me to come. She is a special lady because she does her best to help anyone who calls or stops by for help even if they are not from the community and are in need they don’t turn them away. Love Inc is an organization that provides food, clothing, personal items, prayer ministry, and utility assistance, limited referrals to home repairs, Life Skills training and some other services as well. | Ann got started at Love Inc by volunteering herself for a few years before she became employed there. Ann has been involved in Love Inc. since 2009 she actually met someone at a Project Convention and decided someone needs to do something for the people of Lee Township. That’s how Love Inc came about in Pullman, MI. Located in Allegan County. There are other volunteer people that take time out of their lives to come and help the people there at Love Inc. They go and pick up food that is donated to Love Inc. They also unload the pallets of food donated to them to help the community. Prepare the boxes according to the number of family members and amounts they are eligible to get that day.
Some of the things I did when I volunteered were cleaning the bathrooms, answered phones and made appointments, did some filing of charts and I also helped with the Food Pantry like helping unload the trucks of food that was donated to Love Inc. I also took the intake forms when people come for food and help make the food boxes and helped some of the people that could not carry their food to their cars for them. It was a good experience volunteering there. It’s a good community service and I learned what “People helping People” really means. I enjoyed my time there and I intend on volunteering there again soon.
The needs of the community are food, clothing, personal care items, job training , heat assistance, support classes, and also ministry mentoring as well as referrals to other agencies for things they are unable to help with or don’t have the funding for at that particular time.
The community is doing what they can to meet the needs of the people there by offering different programs and resources necessary to meet the client’s needs. They also offer Life Skill classes, mental health help, Programs for women in crisis, Christmas Adopt-A-Family, Back to school backpacks, Thanksgiving baskets, Prayer and always an invite to come to church.
The views that the community have is that more people need to come together and work together to meet the needs of the people who need help in that particular community.
Some of the agencies that are working together to help the people of the community are A.C.R.D.C. that is Allegan County Resource Development Committee, Women in Crisis Center, Allegan County D.H.S. United Way, We Care and some others there are too many to list. And yes it has been effective for those who want the help to make it better for themselves but for those who don’t and want to just depend on the system No it isn’t effective for them because they’re not interested in helping themselves to make their life better.
Some of the issues that the community is facing towards the needs are there are so many low income families and no jobs available in the community. Some of the people who live there don’t have transportation to get back and forth if they were to get a job. There is also lack of education as an issue, a lot of the people never graduated from High school and don’t have the skills for jobs that may be available.
Some of the changes that I see needs to happen in the community are, there needs to be less complaining and more people trying to help themselves instead of depending on agencies for everything. Yes the agencies are there to help but some people take them for granted and as long as they can depend on them they won’t even try and find a job or even go back to school to get the necessary training they may need to get a good paying job. I see as part of that community there is still some prejudice and racism. I have experienced it myself and would like to see that disappear, hopefully one day it will.
As a Generalist/Social worker I will have to deal with racism, prejudice and also a lot of other issues that clients may have. I will do my very best to be professional, provide the necessary services for the clients, follow the protocols and Ethics, work with organizations to take care of the clients needs.