About the author: Joy, born and raised in China, is a second year graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University. She likes to journal what she experiences in the U.S. Joy wants to have as many American experiences as possible.
Last week I talked about my first volunteering experience with New York Cares doing delivering food to people who are disabled. I found that there are many people who are willing to devote themselves to giving back to the community. However, as I volunteer more and more, I have gradually begun to realize that volunteering is also a self exploring process.
My second time volunteering with New York Cares was spent sorting out books at New York Public Library in the Chelsea neighborhood. I chose this project for personal reasons. I had never been to the Chelsea area before, and had always wanted to explore that part of the New York City. Besides, I hadn't had any experience sorting out books and considered this volunteering project to be a good opportunity to try something new. We were asked to sort out children and young adult books. After receiving our assignment, our project leader told us how the books were marked and sorted, It took nearly two and half hours for four volunteers to sort all the books.
I really benefited a lot by doing this. For example, I had no idea that all these test preparation books (e.g. SAT Prep and AP Prep books) are available at the NY Public Library and anyone who has an NY Public Library card can borrow them whenever they want. Also, since I finished my bachelor's degree back in China, I didn't know much about undergraduate education in the U.S.. When I was sorting out those books, I found lots of books about the advice of choosing colleges and getting financial aid. And I was like "Aha! American people do the same! People all over the world are similar to each other!" Another thing that I found interesting during sorting was that in the children's knowledge book section, there were many books about different countries. Surprisingly, I found a book about Tibet separately. You know, as a born and raised Chinese citizen, Tibet is always considered to be a province of China. You can imagine how shocked I was when I found that book.
I don't consider this volunteering thing to be a waste of time or like I am just sacrificing myself to give back to the community. For me, it's more a self exploring and learning process. On the one hand, I found myself really enjoying spending time with books, as just touching those books made me peaceful and happy. On the other hand, I learned so much just by sorting those books, including the different categories and the sorting process.
Volunteering is not just about giving back to community. It is also a way to live life and explore oneself. I am so grateful for the opportunity to live in one of the greatest cities in the world and to meet people from all over the world who share the same passion and dream.
It might be a cliche, but you only live once, right? YOLO!
