Clarisse Neilan

Clarisse Neilan
Today was my first official at a North Middlesex Service Learning trip. I was so excited about the adventure I was going to have today even though I had no idea what to expect. But today was a truly eye-opening experience and I would not change it for the world. Today we went to the Rockaways which is an island that is part of a larger group. A group of 24 of us set off at 6:38-ish and did not actually reach the location until close to 10:00 am, (I have never been more confused by a subway system in my entire life). We eventually got to the site and we arrived at a church that was destroyed in hurricane Sandy, it was so sad to go inside what should be a place for worship for peace and harmony be a construction site full of power tools and that one horrible event could destroy even the most sacred of places. We moved around 50 church benches and then after that we had lunch and it was great to talk to people in the group that I would otherwise never talk to let only see in school. After lunch a smaller group of us loaded into a van that was very decrepit, the door handles were being held together by duct tape, many of the locks on the car were broken, and many of the wires were broken and loose inside the van. I then made a comment to the leader of the organization saying how this van would never pass an safety inspection and from that he took my comment and told me about the concept of broken and the concept of garbage and said that "garbage is just a state of mind" and that what may be old and worn down to us, is not worn down or old to others and while you might fixate on how one little area is full of garbage but if you step back and look at the giant picture the whole place is full of garbage and that you should be more aware of what surrounds you; that conversation really stuck with me. After we went to the warehouse to paint pieces of plywood that would them stay in the storage garage and be used for later. Finally our small little group went to a house to help clean up a woman's porch because the organization were getting complaints from her next door neighbor about the mess that this woman had. This woman had two bad knees, a broken back, heart problems, and no family to help clean her mess; she was all alone trying to clean this by herself. Her house was under construction and some of is where in her attic organizing and myself and others were outside on her porch to help clear out trash bags that were basically all filled with DVDs. When I was going through these bags and looking through all these DVDs trying to see if they were salvageable I was thinking about the reason as to why this women wold keep all of these DVDs, what is so important about keeping DVDs and then I realized that she lost basically everything in the hurricane and that the DVDs were her last pieces of property left from her old home and that she wants her old home to become apart of her new home. I also remember bringing a bag full of trash to the van where it would be taken to a dumpster and I was dragging it across the parking lot because it was do heavy that I could not carry it and there was water seeping out of the bag. Then this women who was the neighbor of the woman who we were helping preceded to yell at me for getting filthy water onto the parking and near her driveway and that got me thinking about the idea of community and neighbors; that even when something terrible happens and you are trying to help someone there are still people who get angry at you for the slightest things and even I was angry at that women for yelling at me I realized that if you and the people you care about around you believe that what we as a group are doing is right then the opinion of strangers doesn't matter because we know in our hearts that we are still doing the right thing. Overall this day was such an eye-opening experience; from going to a church to a warehouse to someone's home our group did tackled it all with smiles on our faces and having a good time. Being apart of this group has definitely help me to become a better person and that if I need help I can always find it in them and vice versa. Even though this has only been my first day I feel like with all the knowledge I acquired I have been here for a week. I am so happy for such a successful first day and I can't wait for the days to come! So thank you to all of these amazing chaperones and to the group for being such an inspiring group of kids!