Written by Elise Reed

When I was assigned to this trip I became so excited and ready to learn new things and meet passionate people! Children are my passion and thinking about all the fun and heart-filling things we will be learning and doing gets me anxious about leaving.

Most of the time when people think about service, they don’t think of it mostly as exciting but more boring and time-consuming. There are times when service can be time-consuming but making it fun can make it easier to do! I want students to leave Aurora feeling like they can make a change in Springfield by doing minor things, but also to help them focus on what their specific passion is. Either that is with kids or in the hospital setting, but allowing students to find what they love and enjoy doing without the pressure of getting community service hours will help college students find their passion without the stress and anxiety.

I plan to educate, engage and promote self-realization because over my years at MSU it was very hard to find “myself”, I thought that I knew who I was and what I wanted to do but throughout my years I realized how wrong I was. I didn’t realize what my passion was until my junior year because I was so focused on what I had to do and not what I wanted to do. We have a choice to go into a field that will make us happy but finding it first is the hard part!