Maria and Rebecca Tell All!!

Today we spent a large portion of our day at the Palmetto Children’s Shelter in Columbia. We split up into two groups and one group played with the kids while the other group cooked a dinner that we all shared with members of the shelter later that night. The younger kids were elementary-school age and they were super energetic and excited to see us. We spent most of the time running around outside with them until the older kids came back from watching a movie. It was very inspiring to see all the children / teenagers bond together and get along so well. The cooking group later informed us that the shelter did not have very many cooking supplies – no cutting board and a very old knife that wasn’t great for cutting – making us think that there isn’t a lot of home-cooked food at the shelter typically. The dinner went very well and it was great to see everyone enjoying the food. The night ended in a giant dance party with us, the younger kids, and some of the older kids in the main room.

When reflecting on today, I couldn’t stop thinking about how going to one place for one day doesn’t necessarily make a lasting impact in and of itself, you must learn from it and apply it in your every day life in order to make a difference. For example, after going back to College Park we could get involved in mentorship programs for kids in the community. While what we did today did help the shelter, I think it’s more about what we do afterwards that counts. Many of us revealed, during reflection, that our expectations did not exactly meet what we saw. A lot of us expected everyone to be more shy and reserved but they were actually super welcoming and excited to play games with us. That was a great surprise and playing games and eating dinner with them was a great way to end the night.