Personal Narrative Essay #1 _ My First Volunteering work

  I was 14 when I did the real volunteering work. And this work fully changed my thoughts about mentally disabled people.
 
  In middle school, it was responsible to do eight hours of volunteering work. Therefore, I and my friend went to rehabilitation facility where my friend’s father does volunteering work. Because I had bad memories about mentally disabled people, I was scared to go there.

  The work that I should do was to work with them. The first work that I did was to wrap up detergents and shampoos in the boxes. Everyone was concentrated on their work so I didn’t have to talk with them at first time. But after the work, at the break time, they showed interest toward me and my friend. I became afraid again with the thought that they might harm me. However, they didn’t act like the people that I thought of.

 
  They didn’t try to touch me by force or yell at me. Instead, they gave us ice-cream and corns which were snacks of that day. They talked to us gently and asked normal question like others asked when we meet first each other.
 
  Because they were totally different from the image that I had before, I could erase the bad thoughts that I had before meeting them. They were just kind and naive older sisters and brothers. Their nice attitude made me to work with them pleasantly. I really enjoyed working with them and had a nice time at that day.
 
  Two weeks later, I visited there again and was very surprised. They didn’t forget me and gladly welcomed me! I was deeply impressed by their greetings. We had more enjoyable time that day. When all the work end and it was time to leave, I hesitated to take a step. So I took photos with them and say good-bye many times.
 
  The meeting of only two days reversed my prejudice toward people with mental disease. The fear toward them changed into good feeling. I realized that they are not different from us. They are the same people like us who are just naive and have less knowledge than us. Although they are not smart like us, they are still kind and nice, or maybe more kind than us. The deep impression that I get from this experience made me to think about disabled people once more. And now, I tried to help them more when they have a problem. I think I could never forget this valuable experience.