This past year, I spent my community service hours picking up trash at any local beach that I could find. You may be wondering to yourself, why would anyone go to the beach to pick up trash as that seems like such a waste of an experience at the beach? I reply with, “If no one were to pick up the trash, going to the beach would no longer become an experience that people would want to entertain.” 

My first day picking up trash was at Monastery Beach in Carmel. I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed that first day picking up garbage. The truth was I was incredibly angry for multiple reasons. One, I was picking up trash at a place that is supposed to be enjoyable. Two, the amount of garbage and microplastics that had accumulated at the beach was simply enraging. I felt as if I was rewarding the behavior of those before me who left this mess for some civilian to pick up. During that four-hour segment, I picked up two full trash bags of garbage. While picking up the trash, people looked at me as if I was doing something wrong. The general public at the beach had a look of confusion, almost as if they wanted to ask, why was this 18-year-old kid spending the majority of his weekend picking up trash at the beach? The truth was I was asking myself the same question. I wasn’t sure if this was the community service project that I should have committed to. But I made a commitment to 30 hours cleaning up beaches and I was going to keep that commitment. 

As I continued picking up trash from various beaches something in the community started to change. Instead of people gazing at me with looks of confusion, people began to notice me and come up to me as I was picking up trash. I received many comments about how they had seen me around the beaches and that they appreciated my actions.

But that wasn’t the only notable thing that happened. Towards the end of my time picking up garbage, I noticed that each time I went out, I returned with less and less garbage. I was puzzled as to why it was happening. I began to question whether I was doing a thorough enough job when picking up the trash. It wasn’t until one of my last couple days of going out when I saw it. Slowly I noticed more and more people picking up trash. First it was one, then two, and then four people at the beach picking up trash. This was the first time I had seen anybody besides me picking up trash at the beach. But it didn’t stop there, I noticed that families were starting to be more aware of leaving trash at the beach. Change was happening. People were taking care of the beaches as if they were their own backyards. 

After concluding my beach clean-up, I pondered about the effect that this project was having on the community. This was the first time where I experienced that I could change the community just through my actions. I learned that sometimes all a problem needs is for someone to take initiative. Since I only worked at this for 30 hours, I began thinking about what would happen if I committed to this project more seriously? What would our beaches look like in a year? 5 years? Could I rally the community behind this message of picking up our beaches? I wasn’t sure, and to tell the truth, I’m still not sure what would happen if I continued. 

All in all, I’m proud of the work that I did for the beaches and my community. This experience allowed me to see how much influence one person can spread over a community. I always thought that you had to have fame connected to your name to provoke real change, but I learned the only thing you need is passion for a better environment. I look forward to seeing what I–and you–can do in the future knowing that it only takes one person to make a difference in how the world is viewed. While I didn’t change the way people see the world, life, etc. I managed to grow an idea into a piece of reality. As many would know, it’s never where you start, but where you finish. Now I wouldn’t say this is the finish line, but in my opinion…it’s a pretty good start.

When I started working at Spiral Gardens, I couldn’t grasp how influential the work would be in my life. When I first arrived, I didn’t know what to expect. I was quiet and reserved around the other volunteers and staff members.  They all seemed to know each other and I felt very out of place. I was given a task and I worked shyly yet diligently at one end of the garden. As I transplanted herbs from smaller to larger pots, I looked out on the garden. Everyone mingled and chatted as they tended to different beds of fruits and vegetables. I wanted nothing more than to be able to be one of those people talking amongst themselves, but I couldn’t find the courage to go up and talk to anyone on the first day.

I came back the next week determined to talk to some new people. I figured if I was going to be putting lots of time into this project, I should at least make some friends. So, slowly but surely, I started to talk. I asked questions about the different plants and as I engaged with others, I began to feel much less scared. I was surprised at first that all of these adults would want to talk to me, but as it turns out they really did. As we talked, I began to open up and so did they. These people that seemed unapproachable turned out to be some of the nicest people I had ever met. They welcomed me with open arms, fully willing to show me the ropes of not only gardening but also being part of their community and the world in a larger sense.

Over the course of a few weeks, working at the garden no longer seemed like something I had to do, but something I got to do. As I drove to the garden every week, I always anticipated what I was going to do and who I might meet or make deeper friendships with. It was with that attitude that the work I was doing became truly meaningful. It was about something larger than myself. I belonged to a group of people all with one common goal, working towards keeping the garden up and running, while also looking out for one another. By the end of my time there, the people who I was nervous to talk to in the beginning became people who I now feel incredibly comfortable around. Now, I have a group of friends who I know going forward will greet me with a smile and look after me, just as I would do for them. That is what I believe the work was truly about. It’s not entirely about the plants in the garden or checking your community service hours off, but instead, it’s about making connections with people you would otherwise not get to know.

While the connections I made were incredibly important, I also learned a lot about myself. I have always been someone who has been drawn to the outdoors. Ever since I was young, all I wanted to do was get outside and see the natural world. Since COVID has kept us inside for about the past nine months, I began to feel that I was losing my connection with the outdoors. Even though nature was still accessible, I found it difficult to get out of my house. As time passed, I realized that I would go days without leaving my house and getting a breath of fresh air. When I started to work at Spiral Gardens, that changed. It forced me to get outside and do something that had a real purpose. I was able to experience the outdoors in a way that I hadn’t been able to previously.

I have worked landscaping jobs for the past few summers, and don’t get me wrong I had a great time, but there was something about it that dulled the experience of working with your hands. Over the course of my time working in the garden, I was able to experience manual labor differently. It was no longer about making money and trying to get it done as fast as possible. The focus had shifted to simply enjoying the work in the first place. As I worked, I thought about what it all meant to me and, as I processed everything, I concluded that being outdoors is something crucial to my being.

The garden served as a perfect reminder that whether the dirt is in my hands or under my feet, it’s something that makes me incredibly happy and fulfilled. In the end, I realized that this work is not simply about fulfilling a requirement, but it’s about finding part of yourself as well as a community. 

Over March Term in 2020, I was fortunate enough to do an internship with ARM of Care for a second year. ARM of Care uses the creative arts to restore and empower individuals who have been commercially sexually exploited through human trafficking or are at risk for being trafficked.

Despite the unexpected social distancing a week into my internship, it went smoothly overall, and I was ultimately able to accomplish all that we had planned. I am really grateful for and owe a lot to the experience I got working with ARM of Care since March the previous year. Because of that connection, I got to know the organization and its mission a lot better, which helped me with self-motivation and helped deepen my level of consideration for my work this March Term. There were a few major changes in my internship this year, which brought new challenges, different perspectives, and more introspection.

One difference was the increased independence asked of me. By “independent,” I don’t mean “remote.” A lot of my work with ARM of Care last year was remote, so I luckily did not have to go through a big a learning curve about that. This year, I got to experience a different meaning of “independence.” For instance, my artwork this year has been all on paper by hand, rather than online last year, so errors could not be as easily undone. I was given the creative freedom to choose my own mediums for the cards and gift bags I was asked to decorate. At first, I felt stuck between choosing something that would yield the best possible quality versus something that would be more forgiving towards mistakes. In the end, I decided that I wanted to put as much care as possible into making something really nice for the girls (the gift bags) and representative of the organization (the thank-you cards). I chose to use watercolor, a medium that is not very forgiving, but looks great if done well. As a result of this choice, my work took a lot of patience. I had to be even more attentive and cautious than last year. Sometimes the painting did feel tiring, both physically and mentally, but I learned to understand that working “independently” is not just working remotely. It’s also being able to work through challenges and motivate oneself even without a supervisor or mentor always there.

Because of current events and social distancing, I also had a lot of time for reflection and introspection. Although my age and skills limit how much I can help ARM of Care as a whole, I realized that even small things–like painting gift bags for some of the girls they serve–can bring joy and aid in the organization’s mission. I also realized how much my consideration for my work has grown since last year. Last year, I did a lot of digital marketing work, but I did not know much about how the organization operated and I knew almost nothing about the girls they served. Over the past year, as I continued to work with ARM of Care, I was able to hear a victim speak. I heard first-hand about what happens to a lot of the girls they serve and about the organization’s philosophy in facilitating the healing process.

I didn’t really realize how much my perspective had changed until one day during my internship this year. I was adding paint splatters to gift tags for artistic effect, when I was suddenly worried that the dark pink-red splatter might be triggering for some of the girls. I immediately went back and modified all the splatters into tiny flowers. It might have just been me nitpicking, but it’s not something I would have considered last year. I realized that motivation and care for work comes from an understanding of and commitment to the underlying purpose.

Angie and I have talked about continuing to work together, which I am also looking forward to.

I have been volunteering for the Meguro After School program in Tokyo, Japan that takes care of disabled children when their parents need someone to take care of them while they are busy at work. When I decided to commit my 30 hours of community service to this organization, I was optimistic, telling myself that this is my chance to finally learn how to take care of children and meet new people in Japan. Before I knew it, I was in front of the building where I would be volunteering for 30 hours, which seemed unbelievable at the time.

When I first stepped into the building and saw children with various disabilities, I sighed quietly thinking this was going to be the roughest 30 hours of my life. I’m bad enough when it comes to taking care of normal children, so I only had pessimistic thoughts of what my experience would be like with disabled children. After completing all the required hours at this organization, contrary to my original belief, I realized that these were in fact the best 30 hours of my life.

While I was focusing on all the negative aspects of volunteering here, one of the kids came up to me and offered me a cup of tea. I was extremely surprised because this boy seemed to be able to walk and talk normally. He came to introduce himself to me before anyone else and it was very evident to me that this boy was working hard to be seen as a normal person.

The best part of my experience here was being able to take care of the children that I soon came to love. There were about ten children that came every day and I was able to learn most of their names on the first day. For the first two days I went to volunteer there, I was given easy responsibilities such as feeding the kids lunch and snacks, washing the bowls and cups they used, or putting away all the toys.

Something the children especially liked about me was how I could speak English. Some of the kids loved simple English songs such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jingle Bells, or Yankee Doodle. I had the pleasure to sing those songs for them and they stared at me intensely while I sang. By the end of the day, all of them had taken a liking to me. They’ve never met someone that could speak English. They were really surprised and intrigued that I could speak English even though I was Japanese like everyone else around them.

On the third day, my supervisors were nice enough to give me the privilege to take the children out to a nearby park where I would play with and supervise them. It was an honor for me to have the kids entrusted to me, but it was also challenging. Some of these kids burst with energy as soon as we got to the park. They started running towards strangers and so I had to run to stop them and ensure they didn’t bother other people. Some of them wanted to lick the swings and the poles around them, so I had to hold them back and teach them that these things are dirty and that they don’t want their mouths anywhere near it. Some of them got so excited to be outside that they got on my back and started shrieking from excitement, which was extremely adorable but also threatening to my ears. There were many more challenging moments. Despite all of these challenges, I was grateful to be able to spend time with these children outside of the building because they were much more lively outside and I loved seeing them so enthusiastic.

Spending time with these children made me realize how fortunate and privileged I am to be able to go out whenever I want and to be given athletic talent that the children could only dream of having. These children motivated me to work harder on academics and athletics because even if they do want to study hard for something or start playing sports, it’s highly unlikely to happen because they just weren’t as fortunate as me when they were born.

The 30 hours of community service at this organization flew by in the blink of an eye. I thought to myself “Why do I never work to accomplish something to the best of my abilities and take everything for granted when these magnificent kids aren’t given the capability to work towards something as hard as me?” I felt tremendously selfish for not using this blessing that was given to me to the best of my capability when some people around the world aren’t even given this. Until I met these children, I didn’t realize how truly lucky I am for being born into the person I am today. I didn’t realize that activities that seem normal to me were impracticalities for some people around the world. I didn’t realize how fortunate I am to be able to go to school and learn for the sake of learning and to be able to complain about difficulties in certain subjects or how the workload in some classes is excessive. I am sincerely grateful that I found this organization online, that my supervisors decided to allow me to volunteer to assist them, and that I met these wonderful children who gave me more motivation than I have ever felt before and a new perspective on life. 

When I first heard that Camp Kee Tov, the camp I have been going to my whole life would be continuing in-person camp this summer, I didn’t feel optimistic or excited at all. I wanted to opt-out and spend the summer doing as many fun activities with my friends as the current state of our world would allow. I thought that would be a much better way to spend my summer, as opposed to working every day in circumstances I didn’t even think were possible. Many of my fellow staff members dropped out because it was either too big of a safety risk or they didn’t want to commit themselves to the safety protocols we had to follow. I was prepared to drop out, but I knew I would never feel right about that considering how much Kee Tov has given me the past eleven years.

About a week before camp started, I found out that my counselor co-worker, who I would be working with for most of the summer, just the two of us, was someone I was not particularly fond of. He was known to not be fully engaged with the campers. He is also a year older than me meaning this was his third summer as a counselor and only my second. Immediately, I knew that I would have to step up. It was on me to make sure our ten campers were staying safe and having fun. Having no choice but to step into a leadership position I didn’t think I was ready for made me do even better than if I was intended to be in that position. I became the role model for my counselor co-worker and for other staff members in my group. The extra effort and energy I had to put in made me a better counselor then I had ever imagined I would be in my second summer on staff. I was worn out and worked harder than I ever have before, but I also felt really good about the work. It brought me so much joy to know that my campers were having fun and their families were extremely grateful just to have somewhere fun for their kids to go. 

One of my favorite campers was not the most easy-going kid. He had trouble being in a group and didn’t like doing any activity unless he thought of it. He would constantly leave the group and sit alone, refusing to talk to anyone or move. I ended up spending a lot of time sitting off to the side with him, attempting to convince him to join us in a game or an art project. He would cry and ask for his mom almost every time. I would sit and talk to him. Despite the fact that he was only five, we had some meaningful conversations about how he felt. These conversations helped me better understand how to keep him engaged and participating. Every morning I would greet him at his car. His mom would tell me how much fun he was having and how happy she was that he got to be part of such an enjoyable experience. Her telling me this made me so happy that I made the choice to stick with camp and work through the summer of 2020. By the end of the summer, his parents asked me to work with him every day in his distance learning because he and I connected so well. It felt so good to know that I was the reason that he had a great summer. 

From working at camp this summer, I learned that I can really do anything if I put my mind to it–and I might actually enjoy it and get a lot out of it as well! Although this past summer was challenging and a huge commitment, it was one of the most meaningful summers of my life. If I hadn’t agreed to work, I know I would have spent the summer sitting at home feeling unproductive and sad about not getting everything I could have out of the summer. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to even have camp, since so many other summer camps were shut down due to COVID. I learned to not take what I have for granted and that just because something seems hard and not the most fun at all times, it can still end up being very rewarding.  

The most rewarding part of working at Open Heart Kitchen for me, as well as the most challenging, was the defiant individuality of the seniors. I worked the first shifts under the impression that the residents who filled the dining hall were for my intents and purposes nearly homogenous. Old age had given them all the same grey hair and wrinkles. Their shared condition led them to repeat the same polite expressions of gratitude—quiet ‘pleases’ and ‘thank you’s’—as a kind acknowledgement of my presence before returning to their various conversations.

It wasn’t until a few days in that this neat image began to fracture. The first crack happened as I did my rounds serving dessert, taking meal tickets, and exchanging them for bowls of fruit or pudding. I offered to take a meal ticket from a sweet looking lady in a flower print dress. She smiled at me and said that I needn’t take her meal ticket, that another volunteer had already taken it from her and I could just bring her the pudding. Taking her explanation at face value, I did as I was told. One she finished that first bowl, she handed me a ticket and I brought her another one. It was only later, as demand was slowing down and I chatted with the supervisor, that I realized that I had been duped. 

For the rest of my service, newly privy to the various schemes the guests were almost constantly attempting, the job got quite a bit harder. As they got to know me, they didn’t hesitate to contribute to that difficulty in other ways. Pretty soon polite ‘pleases’ and ‘thank you’s’ were replaced with ‘you’re carrying too many plates at once’ and ‘move faster, my food is getting cold.’  Needless to say, my impression of the seniors changed drastically, and not necessarily for the worse.

This change also showed itself off in more overtly positive ways. During one of my shifts, I noticed a guest who I had seen many times before and remembered easily due to his using a motorized wheelchair and wearing an eyepatch. He was holding up pages from a mid-century era fitness magazine showing muscled male models posing in underwear. I brought him his soup and he motioned for me to stay. “Look,” he said, gesturing frailly at the worn pages, “that’s me!” I never saw him the same way again, and it made me wonder about the other guests. What storied pasts could they too hold? 

I made it my mission during the rest of my service to learn about the people I served. I had the opportunity to talk with a woman who was one of the world’s first computer programmers, working at IBM during the dawn of the technology. I met a nice man with a prison tattoo signifying that he killed someone and his very, very sweet dog. This all proved to be by far the most rewarding part of my service, and one that will likely bring me back to the soup kitchen even now that my school-required hours are done.

In my view, many community service programs, including Athenian’s, use service requirements to educate individuals about the values of civic duty, selflessness, and our responsibility not just to our community but to each other by virtue of our shared humanity; our participation in the human experience. While I have certainly become wiser with respect to all three values, the primary outcome of my service project was something else – the experience bestowed upon me a better understanding of human purpose in the context of our ephemeralness in a constantly changing universe, pushed forward relentlessly by the torrents of time.

Prior to conducting my service project with the White Pony Express (WPE), I believed that personal achievement was the most important objective in life. In our society, we are often taught that nothing short of perfection is acceptable, and that anything less than that is failure. Even the way we look at food at the grocery store is reflective of this judgement. There are many who would not even consider buying, for example, corn whose rows are not perfectly straight or tomatoes with too many disfigurations, even though there may be nothing amiss with the product. In light of this, Imperfect Foods, with whom I have collaborated through WPE, was founded to rescue food that is senselessly neglected. Before my project, I believed that we as humans should work towards perfection, and to a good extent still do. However, I used to think this was the ultimate goal of life, and I was shown otherwise.

When I heard about the opportunity to conduct a 200 hour service project as a sophomore, I decided it would be in my best interests to take on such a project as it would bring me closer to the ideal of a perfect model citizen. Since service was valued highly in my community, I believed that excellence was correlated to service, and that consequently this achievement would make me a better community member. I also reasoned it would be a great use of my time, especially since as a teenager, I knew there were not very many conventional ways for me to be a useful member of society.

My first year of volunteering at WPE taught me leadership above all else. It also showed me both the power and value of civic duty, and why it is important to be taught selflessness – so you can logically identify and act on societal needs greater than your own wants instead of succumbing to the common compulsion towards Netflix and popcorn. When multiple people come together in responding to their sense of civic duty, it is nothing short of incredible what can be done. I got several opportunities to lead others in my first year at WPE; I gained experience in leading by example, by directive, and through peer leadership, all of which were immensely gratifying. I felt as if I was giving back to WPE by assisting the flow of the operation and helping new volunteers, as I had been given guidance when I was new.

As a whole, the first year consisted of connecting to my sense of civic duty, striving to be as useful as I could through both my work and leadership, and finding fulfillment in contributing to society. Yet I still believed what was important was to work towards becoming the ideal citizen or community member, to attain this personal achievement of perfecting one’s self with regards to one’s societally given duties. It was not until the second year of my project that I realized that personal achievement, even pertaining to one’s excellence in their fulfillment of the tasks their community deems valuable, is not what ultimately gives us purpose.

In my second year of volunteering for WPE, I took a position as a deliveryman on food distribution runs, a role I had never done before. I would usually arrive at the distribution center early in the morning and go out on a truck to rescue surplus food from local grocery stores. This time, I went out on an afternoon delivery to supply food to pantries and soup kitchens so they could distribute it directly to those in need.

One day, after unloading at one of our stops, I encountered a homeless man sitting on a bench near the pantry. I offered to grab him anything he wanted from the truck, and upon his agreement, I jaunted to the back of the truck, where my eyes fell upon a crate of fruit cartons I had quality-controlled and packed that morning. As I handed a pack of strawberries to the man, who gratefully accepted it with a smile, something clicked in my mind. I came to the crucial realization that personal achievement is not purpose itself, but a contributing factor to a much larger cause. 

The strawberries I handed the man were not the finest but, as opposed to their shiny comrades sitting idly on grocery store shelves, they had a purpose. For the strawberry that goes unused, regardless of how marvelous, will have had a purposeless existence. Hence, I saw that what matters is not purely one’s personal achievement but what you do with the knowledge, skill, and opportunity you have. Many of us desire to do something that lasts longer than ourselves, to leave some imprint in history so that our existence will not have been negligible. Yet one’s achievements, regardless of their magnitude, will eventually all be lost in the sands of time. But the impacts we have on each other’s lives, from the genuine smiles we evoke in friends and strangers to the technological breakthroughs we make that improve the lives of thousands, are permanently imprinted in the being of other observers of reality. In this, we may know that we were not negligible, that we mattered, that we made a positive difference that cannot be erased.

Our personal achievements matter only insofar as we use our gifts to positively impact the lives of others. With great ability comes great responsibility. And I am determined to use mine to its fullest potential.

Community Service is an essential part of life. The beauty of community service lies in the way that it allows for people of all ages and backgrounds to come together and advocate for causes that they are passionate about. Not only does it help those in need, it is also a way in which students can grow and develop their own selves. At The Athenian Upper School students are able to gain these experiences through weekend service trips, ongoing community service groups, and intensive individual projects. This specific website is intended for the students of Athenian to explore newer and more impactful areas of service. Explore our website to find the area that service that speaks to you!