Reflecting on volunteer experiences nurtures what we learn from it and helps us to achieve new understanding about what we are doing and how we are doing it. Critical reflection, in essence, is taking the time to "puzzle" about the service opportunity in which you participated. Reflection lets your volunteer experience linger beyond its moment in time and often encourages unexpected insight!
On this page, we are offering you the option of sharing your reflections with others to further enhance your volunteer experience. The process is simple. Please email us your reflections, questions, news — and we will post it for a while. Let us know if we can use your name and/or affiliation, or if you would prefer to remain anonymous.
Thanks.

FROM: 12-year-old girl who volunteered at a preschool program
"When you really try to help someone else, you are actually helping yourself. I believe that this is true because when you help someone else, you are doing a good deed and then you feel good about yourself. When I worked with special kids children, to help people you have to be aware and accept their differences. When you know and accept people's differences, you can be more open-minded about many things. To learn about different people as a child can help you to avoid being close-minded as an adult."

FROM: 11-year-old boy who worked with infants and toddlers at a parenting center
"You get a very satisfying feeling because you know that parents are being helped while you are having fun playing with their children. It is fun, because the kids are really cute and very playful. But there are times when the kids cry, and you can pretty much guarantee that one child will cry, but most of us think it's fun to hold them and try to make them happy."