Service - 10/28/2020 (Learning Outcome 7)

Gardening is probably one of my least favorite activites. It's hard work and I never really feel like I'm getting anything out of it. So when I found out I was going to be gardening at Avondale house, a school for people living with autism, I was not excited as I should've been. Autism is something that effects people worldwide and effects people in differnet ways. Avondale House works to teach life skills to people and also provide housing. So once I got there to start gardening, I realized it would probaly be best to put my dislike of gardening aside, and instead try to do something nice so that the people living and going to school there would be able to have a beautiful garden to look at. The gardening we did consisted of weeding, planting some foxtails, and laying mulch and soil. It was difficult work, and not very comfortabnle to be working on a pavement sidewalk. But after we were done, I was amazed with how much we had acheived. Everything was so much more beautiful and neat and you could really see a difference. It made the space feel lighter to have so many fewer weeds everywhere, anad it made me really glad I had participated so I could see the transformation we completed. 

This is a part of learning outcome 7, because there are several questions that could arise when you are doing a service project like this. Is it taking an ableist approach to be doing something for people with disabilities? Will it be interpretated as them not being able to do this themselves? I think people might interpret this both ways, because often service like this is just trying to help people in anyway possible and most schools like Avondale house are asking for volunteers and really appreciate the help. This makes it seem like it would not be taken this way. However, we never actually meet the students at the school so we don't know their opinion or how they feel about what we are doing. I hope that they appreciate it and see it as a kind gesture and not at all as something they are incapable of doing, but whatever the case I still think it is important to consider how something may be considered differently depending on the viewpoint and identity of different people. 

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