Second Time Around

Today I volunteered with the Greenlight organization for the second time. I noticed a significant difference between this year’s experience and last year’s experience. This year the main focus seemed to be to change the lightbulbs. However, last year it appeared that the experience reflected more intimate and personal interactions with the home owners. I think that this program which Greenlight offers is a provided opportunity to build relationships with different citizens in New Orleans. I think that the perspective when starting a volunteer project should be to visualize the experience as an opportunity as opposed to a job.

With Greenlight we created a vegetable garden in addition to changing lightbulbs. I expected the gardening process to be tedious and difficult, but it was surprisingly simple and efficient. Greenlight is one of my preferred organizations to work with because it involves simple tasks, but effective results. Being able to see the product of our voluntary participation is a rewarding advantage because it proves how a small dose of involvement impacts large scale communities. Greenlight offers a unique opportunity to learn and experiment while creating a significant and positive changes in peoples’ day to day lives.

~ Mikayla Solomon – Toronto, Canada, 11th Grade