Chelsea McClellan UNIV 291 Dr. Patrick Green 08/29/2012 Reflection A The word service is a subjective one to define.

Although I find service to have several overarching components, a persons own experiences with service can influence their personal definition of what exactly service is and what it means to them. For me, the most important aspect of carrying out service to others is becoming engaged in something bigger than oneself. Service is about giving ones personal time up to actively work to benefit or help another, and to seek a sense of self-fulfillment and purpose by doing so. I feel as though service can be either big or small, and either intensive or subtle. Whatever way service is carried out however, be it through actively working with an organization to better a given community or spending a few hours a week at a local soup kitchen, it still involves putting oneself last and others first, a wholesome and meaningful value that is often lost in many modern, survival-of-the-fittest type societies. My own personal experience with service has been limited, and is therefore something that I am eager to expand on, especially as a student in a Jesuit institution that values service to others so highly. However, though my experience is limited, it is not non-existent, and was certainly purposeful and fulfilling while I was actively engaged in it. During my time in high school, I became involved in a group called Youth Court, where students from several schools in

the county would meet on a monthly basis to review cases of minor youth offenders, and then try and sentence them. The aim of the program was to essentially offer young offenders a second chance, trying them by their peers rather than an adult, and assigning them community service hours and other small tasks and obligations rather than harsher deliverances they would receive in family court. Taking part in service in this way truly meant a lot to me. Not only was I able to benefit myself by learning about the court and judicial system while fostering a sense of community with other members, but I felt as though I had the power to make a difference in the lives of my peers. The kids that were tried via youth court were minor offenders, generally arrested for things such as petty theft or vandalism, and were scared, anxious, and, in general, wholeheartedly sorry for their actions when they appeared for their trials. More than once, offenders would complete their trials, be read their disposition, and approach myself and fellow members and ask how they could become involved in the program. To know that we, by saving these kids from having black marks on their records for minor juvenile offenses, offered them a chance for a fresh start and were looked upon by them as role models, was an indescribable experience. With each case, youth court members would get to rotate positions, so as to experience acting as a judge, prosecutor, or defense attorney, and each position offered a new insight into how youth court made a difference to young offenders. As a defense attorney, I found incredible fulfillment in being able to offer consolation, comfort, and encouragement to a frightened youngster. As a judge and prosecuting attorney, while I had to essentially punish the offender by assigning them a disposition, it felt good to know that I was assigning constructive objectives, generally community service hours and letters of apology, to offenders in a much more

encouraging and less intimidating way than what the same offender would face if tried in family court. Experiencing youth court also helped to open my eyes to issues I had not always seen before, such as the truly devastating effect that broken homes and negative peer influences can have on someone. Sometimes it was difficult to realize that the offender I was trying was my age; a child, essentially. Many offenders came from impoverished homes with a single parent, a guardian, or practically no one at all. It gave me an appreciation for what I had, and instilled in me a true desire to help kids that werent as lucky as I. While the idea of service may mean different things to different people based on their own experiences, I find that it always has overarching components, the first being that service means putting another, often a complete stranger, before oneself. While for me service did not entail going out into the community and actively seeking problems to fix or people to help, my experience with serving others was nonetheless proactive, helpful, and constructive. By reviewing an offenders case, asking them questions during their trial to find the roots of their motivations while committing crimes, and then sentencing them constructive objectives to complete, in many ways I put offenders before myself. I actively sought to discover why an offender did what they did and then deliberated seriously and mindfully with my fellow youth court members to assign a disposition that would best help the offender to learn from their mistakes and get a new, fresh start. At the end of each case, although I had in a very real way, legally punished someone, the feeling I got when an offender would approach my fellow members and I after their trial and thank us for giving them a second chance was one of the most encouraging I have ever experienced. While not all offenders took advantage of the opportunity for a clean slate youth court offered them, knowing that I had truly helped some individuals was

rewarding. As one of Emily Dickinsons poems reads, If I can.help one fainting robin/ Onto his nest again/ I shall not live in vain. Although my experience of service may not be what typically comes to mind when one thinks of volunteer work, it still contained all of the necessary components of what service is and what it means, and was an eye and heart-opening experience in my life.