Community Engagement - Essay Example

There are a number of activities which can are important for community engagement and experiential learning. I have done a few things this semester to demonstrate these. I actually saw them as projects to get involved and really did not think about how much of an impact they might make on the community simply by donating time. One activity that is an experiential learning activity I did recently was to help out by assisting to clean up the roadways and parks by picking up trash. Since it is an activity that does not necessarily take very long, I divided it up over a series of a few different occasions and in various locations.

There was a small group of us that decided that we were going to work together to help the time go faster and sometimes it is far easier to pick up trash when someone else in the group accidentally missed it. In order to do this activity, we thought about contacting a highway department to let them know that we were going to do it but instead, we just decided to go ahead and do it. We gathered numerous trash bags, rubber gloves and manpower to get together to pick up the trash beside the roadways and in the park.

Also when working on the roadside, we decided we better wear reflectors for safety. We worked hard for a few hours to pick up all trash alongside the road and then when we got done picking it up, we then separated it out the best we could so that we could recycle some of the bottles, cans and other recyclables. When at the parks, we also worked to clean out any trash barrels which had not been emptied in a while and then walked the grounds to make sure there definitely was not any glass in the playground area or any other garbage.

We then gathered up all of the trash bags that we had filled and went back to pick up some alongside the road that we had to leave that was full and we could not carry with us, put them in the back of a truck and tried to separate out what could be recycled and then dropped those off at the recycling center and then put the rest in a dumpster.  It is not fun but it is rewarding to know that parks and roads are not cluttered and junky. It makes space look nice and it is also safer for children or even elderly who might be walking and trip and fall on bottles or cans.

Ethically, no one should have to pick up someone else’s mess. Everyone has a responsibility to contribute to making sure that our environment is nicer for the people of the future and if we let it go, then it will not be nearly as beautiful and could eventually degrade into the soul, creep into our water and contaminate it. I personally felt like this was a good experience because donating time to help others is a selfless effort. Someday I want to instill that in others, such as children, to make sure they take pride in their environment and the area they live in.