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Saikumar Dass Honors Community Service Robert Arnold November 21, 2013 Shaping my Habitat: The Movie According

to Websters Dictionary the official definition of volunteer is a person who does work without getting paid to do it. So this entire time I have been doing Habitat for Humanity I have been a volunteer. But after just volunteering for a short period of time I realize that it means so much more than that. Volunteering is just an idea that helps further the progress of the human race and there is no better movie quote to represent this than the one stated by Cobb (DiCaprio) in Inception A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules. By working at Habitat for Humanity you do more than just volunteer. You are building a home for a family that needs it and once youre done it is the best feeling in the world. I have read some of the articles previously in the semester and it talked about how good some people felt after helping build the house, but it cannot be described easily. There is a gratification that you get from volunteering at Habitat for Humanity that is different from other volunteer opportunities. Unlike many other forms of volunteering, at Habitat for Humanity you are doing physical work that directly contributes to the cause. Yes donating money or collecting cans is helpful for people who need it, but its not the same as building a house right alongside the people who are about the live in it

within the next few weeks. After you are finished for the day you can see the physical progress of what you have accomplished and you are one step closer to completing the project. A volunteer is someone who helps others without pay but is also able to take something away from the experience. Those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action- Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) National Treasure. This quote by Nick Cage embodies how a volunteer should be motivated to do community service as a civic responsibility. Looking back at the semester thus far I have enjoyed what I have done, but there is still a lot of work to be done. I have enjoyed the work I have done up until now, and hope to continue to help people in the Habitat for Humanity program. There have been many interesting and enjoyable experiences in the events I have done. Through Habitat for Humanity I have learned so much not only about building things, but also about helping people in general. I look at my volunteering the way Morgan Freeman stated his view of life as Red from The Shawshank Redemption Get busy livin' or get busy dyin. My very first experience with Habitat for Humanity was with the Habitat of Humanity Cabarrus. We helped a man named Dwayne build his future house by putting up the main frames and the interior walls. He was working right alongside us pounding in nails and screws. That was when I first realized how much work the people who are actually getting the houses have to do as well. It felt real good to be able to help a person on their journey to home ownership. Along with learning some valuable skills I was able to help a person get one step closer to their future home and it all happened while I did something I enjoy. When diving into my first experience I was not sure what to expect and was very anxious. But once I as at the build site and started working I felt

totally comfortable and started working with a passion. I came out of the experience with the mentality of what Yoda preached in Star Wars, Do or do not. There is no try. I took this mentality into every volunteer experience since then. My second volunteer experience for Habitat for Humanity was actually oncampus here at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. It was the homecoming build during the week of the homecoming game against UNCP on the 12 th. The idea was based the build off the success of similar builds across the country at other college campuses. I worked with fellow UNC Charlotte students taking off supports from the roof and adding shingles to help protect the roof. Yet again I was able to help the community while I did something I enjoyed. Since it was during homecoming week for football, there was much more school spirit in the air and you could truly feel the enthusiasm in the people working there. I felt like I enjoyed the build more than a normal build because of the excitement that was in the air not only for helping someone in need, but also for homecoming. I may not remember everything that happened during homecoming week but I will definitely remember this experience of building a house. I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning. - Leonard Memento The latest volunteer experience with Habitat for Humanity was actually back in the Raleigh area near where I live. It was in Apex, North Carolina (a few miles from my house) and it had the most volunteers I have seen at any of the events thus far. There were about 30-40 people there in multiple groups, and then there were a few individuals like me. It felt good to be back in the Raleigh area and it felt even better when I was giving back to the community that I was able to call home. We did similar activities to my

first Habitat experience by putting up walls and frames. I was not fortunate enough to meet the homeowners because we were working on a total of 12 houses at once. I was only working on one house, but from where I was working I was able to get a good view of the entire community. There were already 4-5 houses in the community that were previously built by Habitat, and we were just going to add on about a dozen more within the next few months. This was one of my more memorable experiences because of the impact it makes in the community that I grew up in. I had helped out in different ways in the community before, but this was the first time I had done it through Habitat for Humanity. I felt as if I worked hardest on this build because of the direct impact it had on the community that I grew up in. There was even more of a connection with the work site when I met a teacher that actually teaches at the high school I graduated from working on one of the houses. I thought it was the most inspiring since it was in my hometown and it was fellow people from my town working on it for people that I wouldnt have even thought of needed homes in my community. A solid movie quote that would sum up this experience would be What we do in lifeechoes in eternity. Russell Crowe from Gladiator. I also had one more volunteer experience, but it was unrelated to Habitat for Humanity. I did it through the honors college for the Second Harvest Food Bank. We were standing at a shopping complex collecting money for the food bank. Thanksgiving is coming up and many people are in need of food for the holidays. We were able to just stand in the intersection and actually get hundreds of dollars of donations. There was one person who stood out the most in my time volunteering there. While we were standing on the side of the intersection on lady came up in her car with a donation and

told us her story. She told us how her brother was actually able to get help from the Second Harvest Food Bank and then he was able to get back on his feet. It is the experiences like this that help me want to help people and make a change in my environment. The reason I mentioned all these experiences was to show how much the volunteering has impacted me over the semester. I have been able to help so many people and gain so many memorable experiences from what I have done so far. And for now I will have to end on this quote by Liam Neeson from the movie Batman Begins If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, you become something else entirely.

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