Students

I cannot put into words the amazement I experienced during my week in Houston. I have participated in several VE service trips before, but none of them made me feel as connected to my CSU volunteer group, to many different college students who came together to serve, or to a community that I was not familiar with.

Before the trip began, I was overwhelmed with stress from school, my involvements on campus, and the relationships in my life. When the week started, I didn’t want to meet new people and I didn’t know how much I was going to get out of the trip. But then I got to Houston and immediately stopped thinking of myself.

We were split into teams made up of student volunteers from Michigan, Texas and Alaska. We worked on restoring the outside of a house that had been flooded with four feet of water from Hurricane Harvey. Imagine losing your furniture, flooring, wall decorations, curtains, and personal items such as computers, books and old photos. The house was so bad that it really did not have a bottom half left to it.

We got to work on the siding and immediately ran into issues because the windows and doors were not framed correctly when the house was built. So a project that should have taken a few hours lasted two and a half days.

I spent the week housed at the Boys and Girls Club in Galveston, which is an hour out of Houston. We slept on American Red Cross cots, had to figure out a nifty shower situation, and were usually awake by 5 a.m. The program MADE you a volunteer at heart.

My challenge now is to not leave behind the lessons of that week. I want to bring my experiences to Cleveland and into my future profession. This VE experience made me reflect on my own life. I’ve found a much greater version of myself that I’m ready to share with the world.