Becoming an Active Citizen/ Serving the Greater Good

The Honors silent auction was an event where people would come in and bid on donated items, and all the money raised went to the Isabella community soup kitchen. This event took place in the University Center Rotunda on October 25th from 9 am to 6 pm and I volunteered from 5 to 8 pm. The volunteering involved sorting bids, moving items, and calling winners on the phone. All of the other volunteers were Honors students.

I chose this event because it’s an Honors program event, so I’m somewhat connected to it. As an Honors student, this is a chance to help out at an event run by my program. Furthermore, this event is important because it’s raising money for the Isabella community soup kitchen. This is a pretty important place that’s helping a lot of people in the Isabella county area.

As for the event, it was a while before the volunteers were actually needed, so we were able to look around a little bit. I was surprised by the variety of items donated by different businesses and people. It was clear that the Honors program has put a lot of work into setting this event up. Additionally, there were a lot of people who were bidding and volunteering, so it was cool to see that this was something that a lot of people cared about. There were also some familiar faces, as some Honors faculty and other Honors students were there.

Once the volunteers were needed, we helped people to pay for their items. After that, we sorted all the remaining bids alphabetically, with all the volunteers working together. This was pretty fun since I like sorting things. Then, we picked up all the items and carried them over to Powers hall in two trips.

Once we got to Powers, we were told that we would be calling winners on the phone to tell them to pick up their items. I wasn’t aware that we would be doing that, so I was very nervous because I don’t like to talk much. However, we were given a script, so it wasn’t that bad. I was able to get the hang of it after I had called a few people. Once that was done, the volunteering was over.

Overall, this was a valuable experience for me. I was able to challenge myself by doing some tasks I hadn’t done before. I was also able to support an important cause. Additionally, the coolest part of it was seeing how much work went into it and how many people were passionate about it. It’s really nice to see how many people care about supporting others.

Swerrill Green Teams collects and sorts the recycling from the Merrill and Sweeney dorms every Thursday at 7 pm. I joined them on November 16th and there were three other members there.

This is a good opportunity for me because I’m already interested in recycling. It’s really important because it reduces the amount of plastic waste that goes into landfills, which can have really harmful effects on the environment. So, this is a chance to be involved in a valuable cause that I’m invested in. Also, I don’t know much about the specific recycling requirements in Mount Pleasant, so it’s a good opportunity for me to learn more about them.

This experience started off scary, but it turned out to be one of my favorite PDPs. It was frightening at first because I had to go up to the other members and interrupt their conversation to ask if I was in the right place. At first they were all talking without me and I felt excluded and awkward. But, after a while I was able to participate with them and enjoy myself. Basically what we did was collect the recycling bins from each room, and then put the different materials in the different sections of our carts. Then, we would put all the non-recyclable items back into the bins and return them to each room. This was repeated for every floor in both residence halls. The entire thing took about two and a half hours, which was much longer than I expected. So, I was able to understand that there’s a lot of work being put into this.

It was really interesting to learn more about what’s recyclable and also about how blatantly people broke the guidelines. I was surprised to learn that plastic straws and frozen food cardboard were not recyclable, and that paper straws actually are recyclable. Additionally, some people put nasty stuff into their recycling, like chewing gum, spoiled food, and fake nails. These things are of course not recyclable. I was surprised that so many people didn’t even understand the basics of what’s actually recyclable.

This experience got me more interested in recycling and gave me a viable opportunity for doing some volunteering that I care about in the future. Furthermore, learning about what’s recyclable allowed me to change what I put in my own recycling. Also, I learned that a lot of people are not aware of the recycling requirements, so I could understand more of why this is an issue. Additionally, this recycling knowledge allows me to educate others. For example, one of my roommates asked me if something was recyclable and I was able to tell her it wasn’t. I had a lot of fun, so I’ll definitely be doing this again.