5.22/2012

Tooting one's horn...

I'd never been a person to brag outside of video games. One thing I used to feel very strongly about was not taking credit for community service. At my high school, there were awards for the amount of community service done. At the time, I felt as though accepting an award for community service was a contradiction. Community service is volunteer work, it is an act of charity. Having an award for community service promoted a mentality of doing service for reward rather than for the good of the community. Accepting an award for community service seemed to negate the philanthropic deed.

Recently, I have gone through a reversal. A week or so ago, I was in the office of multicultural affairs and one of the Deans told me to remember to do community service. Little did he know, Kaye and I have continuously done service. We mentor weekly, we have given multiple health education talks, helped build houses with Habitat for Humanity, and done a variety of other service around St. Louis. It just seemed like the epitome of irony to me. He was lecturing to people whom had probably done more community service than nearly everyone in the first year in medical school.

The lesson, as he taught us, was that the more he knows about what we do, the more scholarships and opportunities he can push our way. If he knew we had been more active, he could have let us know of scholarships that had passed for students that were highly active in the community. So, from this point on, I'm going to make it a habit to send him an email every once in a while to let him know what we've been doing.

I guess some things have to change.