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 engineer 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 benefit 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 boob tube, 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 fragm ents 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 compel me to recognize the mentality of our culture, out with the old and in with the new.I then sat with a woman who was gazing out of the window. The woman appeared to be in her aboriginal eighties, but...