Serving the community by weeding the garden
I was in the City Park group today (the group Jermyn wasn’t in) and today we headed to the New Orleans Botanical Garden. We were teamed with a rather large group; Emory, High Point, and Salem State (Mass., not to be confused with our neighbors in Winston-Salem) were all represented at the gardens today.
Today was definitely a day where patience was essential. After getting a little lost on the way to the gardens and not having a good feel of the work that we were stepping into, we were greeted to the task of weeding the garden. It seemed a little trivial at first, but after a speech from the coordinator of volunteers for the city park system, the task was painted in a new light.
Lisa (the coordinator) explained while this work seemed little and insignificant, to the people of the area that live in the area, these little tasks could make the difference of the world. She also mentioned how, while there was more glamorous work (gutting houses), it was the little work that had to be done to make the community thrive altogether and the resources simply weren’t always available to have all the volunteers painting or rebuilding a house. So for the rest of the day, we worked on cleaning out weeds from the gardens, working with the other schools in a surprisingly somewhat organized system.
Overall, the experience definitely reminded me to look at the overall picture. Is my job to do whatever work that is personally pleasing at the end of the day or is it to do the work, even if it seems little, that helps out the community the most with the means we have?