The Big Payback

          Giving back to my community has always been an objective of mine.  While driving along local roads I see signs of organizations who have pledged to keep a certain area maintained and presentable.  To those organizations, I tip my hat.  You see my journey of community service wasn’t with one of those organizations.  I was afforded the opportunity to perform a community service as a work study for University of South Carolina Sumter. I was employed at the South Sumter Resource Center via Sumter County Adult Education and volunteered with the YouthBuild program.  The program required participants to be from a low income family within the Sumter-Lee-Clarendon County who dropped out of high school, a chance to obtain their high school diploma or GED equivalent.  Many are classified as being left behind, but the more and more you interact with these individuals you realize that many have bright futures but lacked guidance.  Here is where I asserted myself, to motivate, assist and help educate. I participated in many life skills classes to help teach the soft skills needed within the work force.  I applied knowledge learned at the university when African culture was on display at the yearly Festival on the Avenue. During classroom instruction, I assisted the licensed teacher by tutoring students who didn’t grasp concepts as fast as others or flat out needed one on one time. Again helping your community should be in everyone’s agenda one day, but without me being hired as a work study, I would still be wondering exactly how I could begin.