Post-Reflection Blog (#9)

The Salvation Army is very important to the people it serves, because they depend on the services they provide - perhaps not only for survival, but also to better themselves. While charity shouldn't be necessary for these people to get by, it is necessary in our society; however, the Salvation Army makes it their responsibility to serve those in need, and that is a wonderful mission. The only changes I would suggest to the Salvation Army would be what they would do anyway, and that is to evolve over time to meet the changing needs of the people they serve.

I definitely have a more sympathy and a better understanding for the problems that the people of Canton experience. I did not really realize what "welfare reform" meant, or that so many factors can truly affect this way of life, such as literacy, financial understanding, and parenting skills. This only makes me more aware of the importance of raising my own kids someday.

I don't think I took many risks during this experience, as I was only doing research and not enacting any programs. However, I still think I was challenged after the first few searches to be a little more creative in my other searches so that I didn't always come up with the same results. I also think I grew in my research abilities, and in my knowledge of how nonprofits work.

The best experience about this project was just the overall knowledge that we might be doing something to benefit those in need. The only way I would approach this project differently would be to be more organized: I would print the articles and add them to the portfolio as I did the research, and I would also read the abstracts more closely to ensure the articles' relevance.

This project made me realize that a career in research or at a library would be great for me. I learned new searching techniques, and found that I picked up on them pretty well. I've always wanted to help people somehow in my future career, but this experience made me realize that I could probably thrive in a nonprofit organization, and perhaps make it thrive as well.