Volunteering at a Nursing Home Essay -- Contribution to My Community Se

Volunteering at a Nursing Home I ambitiously decided that I would brighten the lives of the elderly by volunteering at a rest home, but discovered that the elderly were being neglected, shoved aside and forgotten. As I stepped into the home a pungent odor penetrated my nostrils, causing an instantaneous gagging reflex. The place was abounded with neglected and subdued inhabitants, yearning for attention. Anybody that passed them caused a sudden outburst of ranting. The negligence and disregard the home displayed appalled me, but helped me to realize that I wanted to make a difference and change the condition people live in. As I walked down the corridor I noticed a man lying in a hospital bed with only a television, two dressers, and a single window looking out at nothing cluttering his room. Depression overwhelmed me as I stared at the man laying on his bed, wearing a hospital gown stained by failed attempts to feed himself and watching a television that was not on. The fragments of an existence of a life once active and full of conviction and youth, now laid immovable in a state of unconsciousness. He was unaffected by my presence and remained in his stupor, despondently watching the blank screen. The solitude I felt by merely observing the occupants of the home forced me to recognize the mentality of our culture, out with the old and in with the new.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I then sat with a woman who was gazing out of the window. The woman appeared to be in her early eighties, but...