Being
from the suburbs of Chicago I became very familiar with public transportation
at an early age. The idea that I would have to catch the bus to get to Dress
for Success to volunteer wasn’t all that concerning, however, Lexington’s bus
system has got to be one of the least enjoyable parts of my volunteer experience
and made the service learning project a bit of a hassle. The first time I
attempted to use the bus system to get to my organization the whole experience
went well. The bus was only about 10 minutes late and we made the transfer with
time to spare. We ended up at Dress for Success right on time. This bright start
gave me so much hope for the future.
The
struggle began the next time I made the trek to volunteer. With my impossible
schedule, the early hours of the morning was one of the only times I could make
time to volunteer. So after many frustrating emails trying to find a good time
I finally scheduled a visit at 8 AM. I arrived at the bus stop promptly at 7:06
AM when the bus was supposed to arrive. Naturally it wouldn’t be on time and I
wasn’t expecting it to be. No public transportation is. However, I was not planning
on the bus being about 15 minutes late making me miss the transfer and effectively
making it impossible to get to Dress for Success and spend more than about
half an hour before having to get back on the bus to get to class. After
missing this transfer a couple of times it became clear it would be more
effective to power walk to the transit center to catch my transfer and make it
to the organization on time. To put it simply, those 20 minutes became my
workout for the day. It was not an enjoyable experience and definitely one I’m
not going to miss.
With
the hassle of trying to get to and from volunteering without a car I don’t
think I would volunteer if it wasn’t mandatory. The fact that I had to use a
tricky public transportation system to get to and from my organization really
took away from my enjoyment of the service learning project. It almost seemed
like a waste to spend about 40 minutes both ways to only have time to spend at
most 2 hours volunteering, especially when the organization is only about 3
miles and a 9 minute drive away. I think this whole project would be a lot more enjoyable if it wasn’t
so challenging to try and schedule a good time to come that fits my schedule
and then try and get there without a car.
I live semi-near you and I definitely feel that public transportation struggle. I have many fond memories of the public bus being 30 minutes to late take me to school, resulting in me either being late, or power walking 3 miles. For you, it must be incredibly frustrating when it's so close, yet still takes so long to get there. I know transfers can also be really challenging.
ReplyDeleteIt also sounds frustrating that your organization doesn't really seem to have its act together. You would think that when you're trying to put in your very limited time to help the relatively new organization grow and thrive, they'd want to make it easy for you to come in.
Oh man it stinks that you had to use public transportation to get to school! I never really had much experience where I was under a real time crunch when using it, so while I was used to the system being late, I never had consequences as a result. That was a new experience for me.
ReplyDeleteHow fitting that my talk Friday is about public transportation (spoiler!)! It's really disappointing how essentially useless public transportation is here in our country, and that's due to how little we put into it. Not having a way to get to your organization does not make anything easy. It stinks to be a college student without a car, especially in Lexington, where the car is essentially the only way to get around.
ReplyDeleteHey, on the bright side, at least you didn't have to worry about making time for the gym!
Interesting. I'm looking forward to hearing more about it!
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