[Note: This is not the article where you should vote for this contestant. This is essayist No. 8, so in the voting article, which is here, just post a comment that says ‘8' to vote for this student. Voting is limited to one person per finalist per day, and closes at 8 p.m. on May 13. The finalist essay follows.]
We've all done it. We've all put on the hairnet and plastic gloves to ladle lukewarm soup into porcelain bowls that have seen better days. There's nothing wrong with working in the local soup kitchen, but far too often it is accompanied by a grueling attitude and a sense of "I don't want to be here." And, who are we to blame anyone for volunteering, regardless of his or her attitude. Volunteering is what you make of it. If you have that attitude, it is what it is. The lucky part for me, and, from my perspective, the Darien community as a whole, is the fact that Darien's volunteers have bright and shining faces coupled with a genuine passion for volunteering.
To me, volunteering is not as much about what you do as it is how you approach it. I am a member of the Darien Fire Department which serves the Eastern portion of Darien. I submitted my application on my sixteenth birthday and was accepted later that summer. Since then, I have been volunteering my time on a regular basis to protect and serve the citizens of our community, and there is absolutely nothing I love more.
Volunteering in this way has truly changed my life. I cannot live on a schedule any longer. At any given moment, be it at two o'clock in the morning, in the middle of class, or at the family dinner table, we can be called into action. To wake up in the middle of the night to a succession of beeping noises, fire horns, and flashing lights gets my adrenaline pumping each and every time. To be granted the power to help someone in distress is an opportunity that I cannot pass up, and that we as a department cherish. For me, being a member of the fire department is a calling, but more than that, it is something that I truly love. I often look back and wonder what I did before I developed a passion as strong as this, and I have no regrets about the path I am currently pursuing.
It's not what you do, but how you do it. If I could advise one thing to volunteers and those wishing to volunteer, it would be exactly that. I love volunteering with the fire department. It gives me something to look forward to and a place to do exciting things, but also to meet new people in the gravest of situations and to lend a helping hand in the most dire moments of a person's life. It is only an added bonus that I never need to worry about service hours for my resume. That is how volunteering should work: passion first, reward second. If you're doing it right, the reward should come in much greater form than service hours alone.
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