My service experience

Today, I went to Bernie's Book Bank in Lake Forest for about an hour, even though it was originally planned for two hours, but we were let out early. When Bary, our friend, and I got there, they had us sign in and then began to tell us the process of the book sorting and bagging. We organized the books by grades, preschool to sixth grade, and threw the books into the correct bin. Then, we loaded them onto a table where we labeled them with Bernie's Book Bank stickers, and then began putting six books into separate bags and loaded them onto carts to be brought to schools in low-income areas. The number of books that went through our hands was astounding. I probably saw about 1,000 books go through the "assembly" line, only in one hour! This was a really fun experience and I plan on going back again!

This experience taught me a lot about society and the way in which the world operates. This experience showed me that, although it is often hard to realize, especially in our materialistic American society, that there are people that are still in need of books. Books of all things. It amazes me that I grew up with about four or five book shelves in my house, went to the library all the time, and read at school, and at the same time there were kids my age who didn't even know what a book was. I was thinking this when going through some of my favorite books as a kid today and I began to think about the issues of class that we discussed in sociology and this experience emphasized that although we'd like to think America does not have class, we most definitely do and these classes are defined by wealth. Those who, say, cannot afford books are in lower classes and those who can take their kids to book stores all the time are higher class. It is heartbreaking knowing that kids grow up in such poverty that they do not even know what a book or reading is. This experience also made me realize how there are so many people who care about giving to others. Those who volunteer have good sociological imagination and understand that the world is a whole lot bigger than just them and then they must help others in order to be an active member of a society. This experience was very rewarding and allowed me to apply sociology to an actual situation. I can't wait to do it again!