First Blog

I've volunteered at the a Boys and Girls Club in high school and accumulated some where around 300 hours of volunteer hours there and at the time I was just having a lot of fun hanging out with other teens, helping out at teen shelters with our teenage volunteer group, and helping kids with their homework. Once high school ended I applied there as a summer camp counselor. Even then I was just doing something I enjoyed and had fun doing it. Right before graduation I was selected the youth of the quarter at our club and went to the space needle in Seattle and had to give a speech on what the club means to me.

It was then I realized why it was I felt this sense of accomplishment or pride I had felt every time I came into volunteer. I was impacting a kids life every day I went in. It may not be much, it could be something simple like helping a kid with his homework, or talking to a pre-teen or teen about how their day was. I started to think about how the other counselors at the club affected my life. While I was there I had a blast and while I didn't realize it at the time, but I was in a safe environment where drugs or alcohol was never brought in or talked about in a positive manner. It was the little things that the counselors did for me when I was a teen that impacted me the most.

I'll still think back and try to imagine what my life would be like had it not been for the adults in my life were around me. I may have been like my old friend who was addicted to heroin or maybe get some girl pregnant like so many of my friends in high school. I just hope I can have the same impact on a kids life, like the counselors around me when I was a teen.