I never volunteered a day in
my life before this class. I could say that it was because I had no time in high school or
because my family was never big on service, but if I’m being honest the main
reason I never volunteered was because I never found an organization I felt
connected to enough to spend my time working for, especially when I had a limited
amount of free time to begin with. With that being said, I am glad that this
class is forcing me into a new experience.
When I first took a look at my choices of
organizations I became fairly uninterested in the project, however, my initial research
into Dress for Success rekindled my interest pretty fast. This organization
finally caught my attention and made me eager to spend my time helping. Dress
for Success is a worldwide organization with the goal of giving women the tools
to become economically independent.
Their vision for the world is one without women living in poverty where
women spend their time shaping their communities. I was intrigued with their
vision almost immediately, not because I have particularly strong opinions on poverty
and equality, but because I grew up in an area where women being successful parts
of the working world were extremely common. This included my mom, so successful
working women was a very common part of my entire life. I was interested to see
a side of the world I was unfamiliar with and eager to get started.
Dress for Success made it pretty
easy to get a feel for the organization before I even stepped in the door. They
have a very organized well formatted website, which made it easy to understand
their goals and vision. There was also no shortage of empowering inspiring
stories of the women that make it through the system and achieve their goals of
success. I’d be lying if I said the website didn’t spark my initial interest in
the organization. Whoever made that website is well on par with the creators of
those tear jerking animal abuse commercials. This fist look at the organization
made me hopeful for the future of this project. I was sure I was going to be
changing lives!
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| From the DFS Facebook page |
Sara,
ReplyDeleteI think it's very cool that you found an organization that caught your attention for your first service project! I was definitely with you in being pretty uninterested in this project, but I hope it turned out to be interesting for you! Your post made me go check out their website and I totally agree.
Sadly the organization was a little oversold by that nice website which I will be writing about later, but I'm still glad I finally got a chance to volunteer. It has definitely been an educational experience. Interesting is actually a good way to explain it!
DeleteSara,
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to hear how interested you were in this volunteering experience at first. Finding an organization that you find inspiring or that somehow speaks to you is key to having a good experience. But after reading many of the posts about Dress for Success, I hope this experience does not deter you from volunteering in the future. I have spent a lot of time volunteering and once you find a place that you really enjoy, it can be a really rewarding experience!
Dress for Success really didn't deter me from volunteering in the future. I definitely plan on finding a different organization I can volunteer for. While the work that I did didn't live up to my expectations I am still happy that I could help in whatever way I could.
Delete