Vincent Donovan

donovavw@mail.uc.edu
College of Allied Health Sciences
Social Work
St. Vincent de Paul Summer Volunteering
Community Engagement
May 1st
August 14th
Abstract
This summer I will be volunteering at the St. Vincent de Paul call center, helping people
meet some of their basic needs. This can range from delivering food from the food bank
to delivering clothes from the St. Vincent de Paul store. I will be volunteering from 160240 hours at the call center this summer (10-15 hours a week every week (give or take a
week for vacation). This is meaningful to me because, not only as a social work student
but also as a member of the Cincinnati area, I believe its important for us to help those
who are less fortunate. If theres something I can do to help people who need it then I feel
that I should. What I feel that I can learn from this experience is how to improve my
interpersonal skills and also to really immerse myself in the local community to see what
their needs are.
Connection to Learning Outcomes within an Honors Thematic Area
1. Participates in community and understands own role as citizen of community.
I will be directly serving the Cincinnati community by volunteering- listening to people
tell me their needs and me doing my best to help them meet those needs will definitely
teach me about the community I live in and it will help me understand my role in this
community.
2. Possesses awareness of purpose of service, including need for reciprocity,
understanding of social issues, and ability to see those issues from multiple perspectives.
During an after this volunteer opportunity, I will be immersed in what Im doing it and I
will have to reflect on why Im doing it, therefore, somewhere along the way, I will
become aware of the purposefulness of my service. Being a very political person, I am
constantly thinking critically of the world around me. Being heavily involved in this
volunteering program will constantly have me thinking, reflecting, and seeing firsthand
the social issues within this community.
Connection to Goals and Academic Theories
This will definitely help my professional goals. As a social worker, one of your main jobs
is to connect people with resources in a non-judgmental fashion. This volunteer
opportunity calls for that specifically.

Initiative, Independence, and/or Creativity

Well, my being involved will naturally have some effect. What that is I have yet to have a
full understanding. It is my summation that through this experience I will come to find
what my strengths really are, and how I best use them.
Reflection
To document my reflection, I will be keeping a very detailed journal, documenting every
single volunteering shift.
Dissemination
Upon returning to classes for the fall semester, I will contact some of my professors about
giving a presentation in my classes about my experiences, and I will urge other students
to volunteer as much as possible.
Project Advisor(s)
I will be working very closely with trained staff at St. Vincent de Paul. The person I have
been in contact withs contact information is as follows
Andrew Levers
Volunteer Coordinator
Society of St. Vincent de Paul
Phone: 513-562-8841 ext. 211
Cell: 567-204-9871
Fax: 513-562-8843
1125 Bank Street
Cincinnati, OH 45214
www.SVDPcincinnati.org
Budget
No additional funding needed for this experience.