Today I participated in National Rebuilding Day to satisfy the community service requirement for BioEHS. The goal of the former organization is to improve living conditions of hard-pressed communities. So up I got at 7:10 am on a Saturday morning, and sans coffee, headed over to clean up the yard of a free clinic in West Berkeley, Lifelong Medical. While leading our landscaping team (Go Blistering Green Thumbs!) through two truck beds of wood chips and ground cover to provide a low-maintenance, water-conserving front yard, I began talking to the site leader, a Professor Emeritus from UCSF, about the clinic. In response to his gratitude for our work, I said "I'm happy to be here," and I realized that I really meant it. I honestly couldn't think of anything better to be doing on a Saturday morning than shoveling dirt around the yard of a free clinic. He went on to tell me how the proposed budget cuts by the state were going to force them to shut down some of these clinics, and it moved me so much I am actually writing a letter to the state assemblyman to contest these cuts. Wow, who would have thought, that in the countdown of my departure from Berkeley, my political apathy would finally succumb to Berkeley's activist spirits?
I joined BioEHS solely for the honors cord at graduation, and have always grumbled about completing their requirements for membership, but for the first time today, I felt like I understood why the requirements existed. I can't say I would have done either Berkeley Project (last semester) or National Rebuilding Day if they weren't required, but I definitely took away something positive from both. Even if the effect lasted only a day, I became a selfless, socially-conscious citizen while volunteering, which aren't words I would normally use to describe myself. I will no longer complain about BioEHS, or any other social organization for that matter, as I am finally realizing the importance of a well-rounded individual.
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