By Melody Staicoff
Today our group went to serve at Growing Places Indy. This organization strives to bring farming into an urban setting, while also providing organic produce at an extremely reduced cost. They put us right to work dumping compost, planting beds of seeds, and learning about the sustainable practices that they follow.
The things that I personally experienced today were pretty groundbreaking. I started the day off frustrated with the simple tasks, as I felt some sort of disconnect between the work and who it was actually benefiting. I am someone who typically sticks to direct, people-oriented service work, so this was pretty beyond my comfort zone. At the end of the day, our group discussed the importance of not only direct community service but indirect service as well. I now have a better understanding of why the work that we did was crucial to the success of Growing Places as a whole. We talked about how indirect service often gets overlooked or discarded because you lose that benefit of seeing the immediate effect. While I was expecting instant gratification through our service, I have learned that this is not always the case, and that is okay. The knowledge that we gained today about implementing sustainable practices anywhere you go is more than beneficial to all of us on this trip.
Overall I’m ready to serve here for the next couple of days for this amazing cause. Sustainability is something that I have overlooked in my own life, so I am excited to gather as much knowledge as I can. I am prepared to step even more outside my comfort zone and explore this idea of indirect service. GO INDY!