Reflection on Community Involvement - Essay Example

?Reflection on Community Involvement My community involvement experience was a great opportunity for me to understand how businesses can contribute and make a difference in their communities. It is a way for corporations to show that they are helpful to the communities they serve in order to seem approachable to their customers. It sends out the message that the businesses really cares about their communities and want to make positive contributions to help people. It also shows the communities that the businesses are stable and wanting to become a permanent part of the community. This is actually a great marketing tool to help customers identify with and makes them want to support businesses with their business needs. Amdocs Corporation is actively involved in many citizen oriented activities throughout the world. They especially reach out and contribute to programs and activities involving children, people with disabilities, and, the poor people and communities where resources for survival aren’t as available. They are actively involved in food and equipment drives, education and mentoring, and drawing attention to community needs. This made an impression on me because the article I read talked about them doing many good things to help people in ways that are more humanitarian instead of business oriented. People who work for Amdocs are part of these communities also; it makes them feel that their company supports them by being actively involved in helping the community. Not only does Amdocs contribute funding support, but it also contributes thousands of hours of community service to help bridge the gap between what is needed and what the community can provide for itself. Amdocs received a special recognition as being one of the top 100 companies to provide community outreach and service. (Amdocs, 2011) My community service project experience was spent with Faith, Hope, and Love, International, Inc. in Indianapolis. It is a multi- cultural faith based organization that began in Indianapolis in 2005. Their main vision is to make an impact on the neighborhoods surrounding them to increase the social, economic, and spiritual qualities of life for the people they serve. They are actively involved in faith based outreach ministries as well as supporting foreign missions and families with donations. They also have a food bank that helps people locally who are struggling to find enough food in the local community during this time of economic hardship. Their goal is to break down the walls of separation between ethnic and religious communities to show caring, support and concern for all as the strong arm of their faith based ministry. I found this organization by looking through the list I got from class. I didn’t really know anything about them, but the name sounded good to me. I learned a lot about volunteerism from this experience; how even the smallest assistance makes a big impact. Non-profit organizations can always use an extra hand to help handle the heavy loads they carry. When people volunteer their time and energy to help these organizations, it frees up the administrative people to do more important tasks associated with enlarging their outreach to the communities. Some of the smaller organizations, like the one I chose, have minimal numbers of staff to perform a lot of duties. There was only one couple at the ministry in charge of everything and I helped them as much as I could by performing three services during my volunteer stay there. I helped organize food and supplies at the food storage bank. We had to keep like items together to make it easier for the workers to pack the bags for when people arrived to get their food packages. We also had to make sure the donated foods and their containers were in good condition and did not have expired dates. They asked me to help send out postcards thanking donors for their contributions as well as ones to local businesses and other faith communities asking for support. I sent out around 300 postcards which were hand addressed and stamped. I also helped them update their database by looking through the phone directory and internet to find new churches, shrines, and temples to add. I can see where they needed a much more innovative marketing plan to help increase their donations and volunteerism, but then they would expand and grow requiring more physical space; something they didn’t have currently. At first I was so excited to begin my volunteer experience. I had never participated in anything like this so it was a new thing for me. I called the organization to see what their needs were and what requirements they had for volunteers. They were very nice to me and soon I went to join them. My first responsibility was to help organize food donations in the food bank warehouse. It was a little bit uncomfortable for me, because I wasn’t used to doing anything like that. I had never volunteered before and had no idea about how to store or work with food items. Then, when they asked me to help with their mail out program and updating the database, I enjoyed the experience much more. I felt like it was something I was better suited for. The whole experience made me realize that volunteerism is not necessarily an easy thing; however the sacrifice of doing it makes companies more aware of what the community truly needs and how to understand and better serve the people. This experience helped to put this class into perspective for me in a positive way; a complete picture with a hands-on opportunity. The operations went smoothly, however on the second day I was late in arriving there so I gave up my break time in order to get everything done on time. The office is staffed by only a married couple; they are responsible for everything and if their volunteers don’t arrive as needed on time, then they have to perform every activity themselves as well as handle the phones and any emergencies that come up. They were happy to have my help and hope that I will return to help again. Through this community service project I learned that I am not as comfortable in this aspect of corporate service; I need to grow and expand myself not only as a business associate, but also regarding humanitarian ways. I discovered I was not so comfortable facing the human needs of people I don’t know. In business, it is so easy to remain professional and just follow procedures to get the job done; however the human compassion aspect of business is a new experience for me. Prior to this project I haven’t done any volunteerism so I have no other experience to compare it with. I was glad for this opportunity to explore this aspect of corporate involvement; it taught me that I have a long way to go to become a fully functioning member of the business community. It also taught me that I need to grow as a person to become more comfortable in dealing with people I don’t know. I’m sure, with time and more experiences in life, I will be able to do more to help others; maybe a different volunteerism project would be more comfortable for me. Works Cited Amdocs. Corporate Giving and Community Involvement. Amdocs. 2011. Web. April 22, 2011. http://www.amdocs.com/About/Corporate-Social-Responsibility/Pages/cgci.aspx Read More