I love to be Volunteer

In my first three months, there were a lot of exciting thing that I’ve had. My first community service is the thing that I will also remember forever. I helped in the food bank at church. Food bank is like a small pantry that stores various kind of food for the family that don’t really have a good economy condition. There are approximately 50 families that usually will come to the food bank because they are not able to buy all the food to fulfill their need. I helped in that church for about 10 hours. I helped to prepare their breakfast after they have a Sunday prayer. Food pantry or food bank usually is held every first and third week in a month. I helped to prepare their sandwich and put them in the plates. After that I helped to bag all the stuff that they take from the food bank and helped them to carry their stuff. The thing that made me very touched is, they always said thank you and smiled at me “Thanks for being a volunteer”.  They recognize me as an exchange student who always cover her hair with scarf. Everytime I went there, I always wore my CIEE shirt or YES shirt. 
That’s why I do love volunteering because I could connect lives among each other, there is no gap between the one who give and receive help. We all talked each other. They always say “May God bless you all”.


I love being in part of food pantry because of how close we are. They are all so nice to me. I’m so glad to see them happy, doing community service also makes me really grateful of the things that I’ve had. Being grateful of the things that I’ve had makes me to still stay positive. In every ups and downs that I’ve had during my exchange year will be useful as a life lesson for me. Joining this exchange year also gives me a new eyes to see the differences, being respectful to others. For me, rainbow will not beautiful if it’s just consist of one color, the various color in it even makes it more beautiful. Everytime I was hanging out with anyone, it could be my friend, family, people at church and another communities, they will ask me about how my country looks like, how do I feel staying in America, and even they could ask me about my belief. Not only being representative of my country, but I’m also being the representative of my religion. I want to bridge understanding between my home country and my host country. I shared several things about my belief and they do respect me so much just the way I respect them. At school, I am allowed to do my noon prayer every lunch time in the nurse office. I am so blessed because of surrounded by good people. Being a minority is a great challenge that I had. I still do my prayer whenever or wherever I go, people around me always respect me when I was doing my prayer. This experience even makes me more faithful and respectful to others. Before having dinner with my host family, we usually say the blessings. Sometimes I will say the blessings in Arabic, and I always listen whenever my host family say their blessing. Sometimes every Sunday I come to my host family church. I’ve experienced to come to my family church for several times, but not everytime. Usually I just stayed in the coffee shop in the church and will talk to them as they finished their prayer. People at my host family’s church are also my host community that I often meet, instead of our neighbor. I talked to them and share a lot of things about my experiences that I’ve had here. I joined some activity that is held by youth group at church. We had several fun games at church and one time I went to hockey game with them.

I love to be Volunteer