Puerto Rico Renace (Puerto Rico Reborn)

Luis
M de Jesús Marquez

June
15,2018

Puerto
Rico Renace

After
hurricane Maria Puerto Rico got devastated and many homes were lost,
in my school a teacher named Mrs. Aidita created a volunteer
community work group named Puerto Rico Renace (Puerto Rico Reborn).
In this group, we the students spent hour after school hours in a
classroom filled with canned foods, we packed them up in grocery bags
and after a week we drove to the most remote devastated part of the
island and delivered the food to the elderly and people in need.
Apart from giving food, we also gave toys to the little kids and
pampers to the babies, to the adults we delivered solar power
flashlights and solar panels.

I
have been doing community work since I was in seventh grade. Part of
my involvement in the community work is because my school has a quota
that you as a student must meet every year. If you don’t meet set
quota during the school year the next year five hours will be added
to your quota. At first I only volunteered because of the school’s
quota, but after hurricane Maria, I saw how my island was destroyed,
I joined the group Puerto Rico Renace created by a teacher at our
school not because I wanted to do community hours I joined the group
because I saw how many Puerto Ricans were affected including me and I
thought to myself maybe there is a way I can help others in their
time of need even if is giving them a hug and telling them everything
was going to be alright. After I joined I started to develop a
feeling of usefulness that I haven’t had the experience to feel
before. That feeling kept me motivated. Sometimes my voluntary work
started at 7am and ended at 12am. Every time that I stayed until 12am
and got home my body does a shutdown but, in my mind, I feel happy
because of what I had accomplished that day. If I have done a lot of
types of community work from filling papers to giving water at a 5k
race, to delivering food to people in need. Volunteering for me when
I was little I considered it to be a hassle and annoying, but after
growing up I started to see it as something that was necessary not
only for me but for the community. It has taught me a lot since I
learned haw many people live very poor lives, I also learned that the
places I visited with Puerto Rico Renace most of them were very
isolated from the cities most of them were in the mountains and the
news never cover how in bad of a shape they are. Up to this date
there are people in the mountains in Puerto Rico that still does not
have electricity after hurricane Maria. It also taught me that there
a lot of ignorant in the world that does not care for other people
except themselves. My plans in the future involve myself finishing my
carrier as a chef and owning a restaurant and going to places that
there a lot of homeless and bring them food I would like to join a
group of chefs that do that kind of service.