My name is Maureen Hawe and I am traveling with 9 other students and 2 faculty members from Norwich University to Vietnam on a service-learning trip. The group is called NU Visions Abroad and is a community service organization at Norwich that travels to other countries to help out and learn. In the past they have travelled to other places such as Cook Islands off of New Zealand and Tanzania in Africa. Community service activities include teaching English to students and helping out in orphanages.
This year, the NU Visions Abroad program has scheduled a trip to Vietnam with Clear Path International, where we'll learn about the dangers of unexploded landmines and the effects they have on Vietnamese, along with participate in various community service activities. In preparation for our trip to Vietnam with CPI, we're required to do some community service for CPI. So, here we are in Dorset, VT staying at the Hathaway's for the weekend helping out with the organization.
So far all it has consisted of is folding some news letters and putting some inserts into them and seemingly endless data entry, and it seems like we're not really helping out all that much. However, after talking to Martha a little about about what we've done so far, I realize that it's small contributions like this that really do make the difference. For example, just the group of us folding the news letters have saved CPI a couple of hundreds of dollars, and, by simply putting the inserts in the new letters, we've saved Martha roughly 50 hours of her time.
Small acts of volunteering really make a difference. If everyone could contribute a bit of their time to a small organization once a week or even once a month, it helps. I strongly encourage all who are able to dedicate some time to vonlunteer work, whenever they can. One person really can make a significant difference!
The Norwich Group with CPI Executive Director, Martha Hathaway in CPI's backyard in Southern Vermont.
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