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SOME REFLECTIONS ON THANKSGIVING SERVICE
  
 

   Jordan Farber.

   We have some really good family friends who have a daughter named Katie. They came up for the holiday weekend. They were here Friday through Sunday. I decided that for my sevice hours, rather than serve outside of my house, I was going to spend time with Katie. Katie has a rare condition called Williams Syndrome. Williams Syndrome is a very rare genetic condition that affects about one in eight-thousand births.

   You can tell by looking at Katie that she is "special". She has a number of outward appearances. Additionally, Williams Syndrome causes a variety of mental disabilities. Katie is developmentally delayed and and has several learning problems. Luckily, she doesn't have a huge amount of physical symptoms and leads a relatively healthy life.

   When Katie comes to town, we usually all play X-BOX and basketball while Katie looks on for hours on end. This year, my brothers and I decided to make it our goal to include Katie and spend time with her. This would make a nice weekend for Katie, plus we felt that we would take something valuable away from the weekend also.

   Katie loves animals. We spent hours on end teaching our dog Chewy tricks with Katie. We laughed and laughed and laughed. We taught Chewy the new tricks in Spanish. Katie thought that was hillarious. We also spent a number of hours with the chickens. I showed Katie how to hypnotize them. She thought that was hillarious too.

   By spending this time with Katie, I felt that it gave me more compassion. It helped me realize that taking a little bit of time to spend with her not only helped her feel special, but it gave me the ultimate gift. Usually Katie just gets ignored by the group of kids. Stepping outside of this box and spending time with her made me feel thankful for her. Katie is happy, sweet andjoyous. God has blessed all of us with Katie. I am thankful for her.

  
     
 

Joey Lucchetti

   After this experience, I decided to volunteer every year for this event during Thanksgiving time. I saw that my skills werer very useful and that a few hours of hard work enabled about 500 people to get a coat. It offered me a way to give back to my community and helped to increase my thankfulness for all the blessings that God has given to me. It is hard for me to imagine not having a warm coat or needing a free haircut or meal.

   This volunteer opportunity really opened my eyes and heart to the needs of others. The coat distribution center had almost run out of coats by the time our shift was over. The lines were still long and many more coats were needed. It made me think that next year I might be able to ask our school community to donate coats to the Redwood Gospel Mission to help fill this need. If we would have had about 300 more coats it would have been awesome. To turn a child away with no coat impacted me and made me want to do something about it.

   It would be great if our Campus Ministry class could help out next year. I am so thankful to my school for creating this mandatory sevice obligation. You don't realize how good and important it is until after you have done it and see the changes it makes inside of you, and see how it increases your gratitude and faithfulness.