My Alternative Winter Break taught me to suck it up

Community service has always irked me because it can be immensely hypocritical. Service leaders beat into your head that if you don’t love what you’re doing then you’re a bad person.

I can guarantee that most people do service because they want to help out in some way, but the idea of free labor isn’t exactly enticing.

Service work usually involves intensive labor, such as crushing cans for recycling

Regardless of my feelings, my junior year I joined Vanderbilt Alternative Winter Break. The main reason I joined AWB was because I wanted to do something other than go home for a month and atrophy in my parents’ house. Even cleaning up animal poo at a wildlife refuge was better than going home and being bored out of my mind.

So I went through my AWB interview, feeding the board members some stock answer about making a difference in the world, and came home a week later planning on being a site leader for the next year.

This isn’t me. But it is an attractive person who represents AWB well

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t thrilled to spend a week doing hard work. But I made a great group of friends and learned a lot about being vulnerable around others. Service was the façade for the trip, but making new friends was the true benefit. So does not buying into the whole service concept really take away from what we were doing?

No. You may hate your service, but in the end, it still benefits whomever you are helping. Unless you’re a lazy fuck and don’t get anything done.

Last week I returned from my second AWB in San Francisco where I was a site leader. We spent the week preparing and serving meals to the homeless with Glide Methodist Church.

We arrived at 9 am and stood on our feet until 5:30 pm. We walked over 50 miles during the week. Yet the work was immensely fulfilling.

Some of the Glide staff showing off jambalaya. Yes, they literally made five-star jambalaya for their patrons

Imagine this guy, ‘Bernie Mac’, making you cut hundreds of potatoes while playing slow jams in the background

Gucci here is one of those people you dream about going to a club with

Our group was greeted every day by an inspiring staff ready to labor. Bernie Mac is a diabetic who runs every single day in addition to working hours on end at Glide. Gucci took the time to talk to every one of her homeless “clients” in a special section of the church that served families and the disabled. I came home with a sense of awe in regards to the amount of work Glide puts in 364 days a year. I am also happy to never serve food again in my life.

I’m not saying that you are allowed to be an asshole when doing service because you aren’t 100 percent happy to be there. But I am saying that you shouldn’t avoid service because everyone who does it pretends that it’s the most fun that they’ve ever had in their life.

Service is service. Do it.