By Lena Cologgi, SBS Class of 2025
I love volunteering. It has taught me important lessons, helped me grow significantly, and brought me closer to God. My time volunteering at Mercy Drops, CHKD, and Sentara during the last few years has impacted me the most. It has taught me three important lessons I hope to carry with me throughout life.
Mercy Drops is a local organization dedicated to finding struggling people in the community, providing for their needs, and building relationships with them. Through Mercy Drops, I have been able to serve many different low-income neighborhoods in my community. The kids in these neighborhoods have always been the closest to my heart. Every Saturday, I go with Mercy Drops to a neighborhood and take toys and games for the kids to play with. Every other day of the week, a lot of these kids have to take on adult roles in their households. By going out to their neighborhood on Saturday, Mercy Drops provides time for these kids to just be kids by playing games and feeling safe in their own neighborhoods.
Working with these kids has taught me the importance of persistence. It is not easy waking up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday to go out and volunteer. I can be honest about that: in winter it is cold, and in summer, hot. But the fact that I come back week after week shows the kids that I care about them enough to be there. Too often, people abandon and walk out of these children’s lives. Consistently showing up week after week shows the kids that we care enough about them to make sacrifices and dedicate time to them. Persistence is a huge demonstration of love and reflects God’s persistent and consistent love for us. If I am not persistent and do not take initiative to solve problems and help others, then the impact will not be made. True caring is being persistent when no one else is, and volunteering at Mercy Drops has shown me that.
Over the last summer, I also had the opportunity to be a junior volunteer at a local children’s hospital called CHKD. At CHKD, I was assigned as an office assistant. I worked on spreadsheets, mailed letters, created gift bags, etc. To be honest, I despised the repetitiveness and boredom of doing these things. I learned that I definitely was not made for an office job. But volunteering there taught me humility. It did not matter whether I enjoyed the task I was doing, because it was not about me. Every single employee and volunteer at CHKD is there because they are committed to helping sick children. I may not have enjoyed meticulously typing names into a spreadsheet, but I loved that I got to participate in a cause that was focused on helping others, no matter how small my task.
God’s Word teaches us that valuable impact does not come from flashiness or accomplishment, it comes from humble service. Galatians 5:13-14 expresses this principle when it says, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
Humility is a quality that we should value greatly and strive for daily. Volunteering at CHKD taught me to not focus on my own feelings or comfort, but to focus on the people I can help and what impact I can make.
Along with volunteering at CHKD over the summer, I volunteered at Sentara, another local hospital. My position at Sentara was focused on improving the patient experience, specifically by going to patient rooms and providing for their immediate needs. Patients would ask for food, a refill of their water, help adjusting the temperature, and more small things.
This volunteering showed me the value of kindness. A small thing like a cup of water can make a huge impact on someone who is struggling, and all it takes to make that person feel a little bit better and a little bit loved is kindness. The look on a patient’s face when I bring them something they requested is something I would not trade for anything in the world. I have found so much personal value in being kind and helping those in need through my time volunteering at Sentara.
My goal in life is to not focus on myself, but to focus on others and what I can do to impact them. I want to be kind, persistent, and humble. Volunteering is a way I can spread God’s love and fulfill His purpose for my life. Every day I aspire to grow closer to God and spread His joy to others. Volunteering allows me to do this, and it is why I love it so much.
