Taking Time Off: A Year of Community Service (continued)

Creating Community

My AmeriCorps experiences taught me the meaning of sympathy, the importance of attempting to understand what people are dealing with before evaluating their worth, the significance of perseverance, and the awesome power of hope.

I know now the responsibility of what I have been given. I have met Poverty and I can name her. I have met Hope and I have befriended her. I have met Loneliness and I have battled her. I am an eighteen-year-old who knows herself and knows what she wants. I am going to college now because I want to go, not because I am supposed to go.

College, I expect, will give me the tools to engage in meaningful conversation and to create community. By building a foundation that creates community for myself, I want to be able to continue to go out into the world and be that person for other people in need. I want to make and be the connection.

I am a different person than I was. I am grateful for what I have. I know the reality of responsibility. I know the strength that I carry inside me. I recognize now that my AmeriCorps service has truly been the introduction to my story and it was the introduction I needed to write.

Elizabeth Daniel graduated from a Texas high school in 2002 and decided to postpone college for a year to serve in AmeriCorps. Ms. Daniel later attended the University of Chicago. AmeriCorps engages Americans in intensive service to meet community needs in education, the environment, public safety, homeland security, and other areas. Among the many benefits of serving in AmeriCorps, most AmeriCorps members receive an education award following successful completion of their term of service that may be used to help pay for college or qualified student loans. For more information about AmeriCorps call 800/942-2677.