Growing up, my mom always told me that I needed to volunteer in order to put it on my resume for when I applied to college and a future job. As terrible as this sounds, I never wanted to go. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to help people, but I felt like the motivation wasn’t genuine. My motivation was my mom and high school club advisers telling me I wouldn’t get into college if I didn’t go. Although I always enjoyed it, I felt like I wasn’t there for the right reasons, and was there to please the person in college admission who was reading my application.

Over winter break however, I went into New York City with my mom and our local church group to hand out care packages to the homeless. This time was different for me, because my motivation wasn’t to put it on my college application or tell an employer what I did. We handed out over a hundred packages to homeless people all over the city. These care packages were filled with everyday items, things you wouldn’t think would mean the world to someone who is way less fortunate than many of us. The packages were regular ziploc bags, filled with items like socks, toothpaste, gloves, hats and simple turkey sandwiches. I will never forget the husband and wife who began to cry when they received the bags. I never seen someone get so happy and emotional over socks and turkey sandwiches in a ziploc bag.

It’s crazy how our society has so much, yet always wants more. People wanting the newest phone, even though theirs works perfectly fine. People wanting and wanting and never take the time to be grateful for what they have. The care packages given out made so many people’s days, yet I have seen people get mad because their mom didn’t send them the kind of granola bars that they wanted. Our world has turned into a power-hungry society, where we feel as though we need luxury items to show our power and wealth.

Growing up, I feel like volunteering was made into a chore for a lot of us, since it was required for a lot of clubs and organizations in school. This ruined a lot of my past volunteer experiences for me because it was mandatory for me to go. I think our society needs to think about volunteering a different way, especially because we don’t even realize how fortunate we are to have the lives we do.