Volunteering again

This archived article was written by: Morgan Verdi

I hope when people read the headline, they pictured Katniss in “The Hunger Games” standing up and screaming, “I volunteer” in order to save her sister from certain doom. Though that’s not exactly what I was going for, I had to say it.
Looking through the eyes of S’morgan, as I’m sure everyone noticed, is my perspective of things. For some, it’s possibly a whole new and crazy way of looking at life. For others, it’s simply the way you’re used to looking at things. Either way, it’s perspective and that’s important because isn’t perspective what makes up us humans? I’d like to think so.
The words “I volunteer” are what I want to focus on. Volunteering is a delightful. You help others and you get that warm fuzzy feeling everyone strives so hard to achieve. Unfortunately, volunteering hasn’t been a huge part of my life. I used to volunteer in the community every week, then I stopped and that was hard. Helping people is what I love to do, so not being out there helping has been slowly eating away at my soul, then it all changed.
A few weeks ago, The Eagle staff and I skeptically started volunteering, something that is completely new for us. I mean lets face it, we are known as the weird newspaper students who stay up late, accidently sleep through classes and hide away in our “black hole of the journalism lab.” That is who we’ve been for years. We stay behind the scenes and report. That’s our job, or it was our job.
Now we are done being the students that only tell about the volunteering that goes on in The SUN Center at USU Eastern. Now, we are the ones who do the volunteering. The joy that we have all experienced from making this huge change is immeasurable.
We volunteered at the Kiwanis Kids Day, thinking we would stay for a few hours then leave. We ended up staying the entire time. In fact, we were some of the last to leave. Seeing the children so excited and happy was something great. We couldn’t stop smiling. That feeling stayed with us.
When we heard about all the damage from the flooding in Carbon County that occurred a few days ago, we went right back to it. Knee deep in mud, we worked endlessly. At the end of the day, though we were exhausted, we were happy. We had an immense feeling of satisfaction.
I truly believe nothing can compare to the feeling of helping others. If you haven’t volunteered, I would say you have to, it’s a necessity. It’s an experience that will never leave you, but more than that, it leaves an impression on the ones you aid as well. There is nothing better in life than giving of your time and energy to assist others. So the next time someone asks for help, make sure you stand up and scream, “I volunteer.”