Bon Secours Memorial College of Nursing

NUR 4144: Professional Role Development Servant Leadership

Service-Learning Project Individual Reflection Paper
Grading Rubric
Student Name: ____Harrison Black__________
Community Agency: ____Grace and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church___
Instructions: Reflect upon your personal experience in this service-learning activity, using the
following key components. Answers should be derived individually; in other words, do not
discuss this personal reflection with your group. Papers should be between 1000 - 1500 words.
Points
Possible

1. Noticing & Interpreting:

What expectations did you have of this experience? Were these
expectations met or not met?
What strengths and problems did you, personally, see in the
community? What assets/solutions to problems did you see?
Why did you see what you saw-- how did your values and
experiences concerning needy communities shape what you
saw and heard?
2. Responding:
What have you learned about the needs of this community?
Did you find the service activity to be truly relevant to the
community?
What follow-up should take place to support this communitys
strengths and/or address the communitys needs?
3. Reflecting on service-learning:
How has this experience influenced your perception of your
call to serve and you as a servant leader?
Reflect on the core tenets of servant leadership and how they
apply to this service-learning experience.
Describe how you applied each of the following within the
service-learning experience:
i. Heart
ii. Hands
iii. Head
iv. Habits
4. Reflection-on-Action
What surprised you most about your service learning
experience?
How do you think the skills you learned will be used as you
become a registered nurse?
What impact do you think you had on the community where
you completed your service-learning project?
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20

20

30

30

Points
Earned

Total Personal Reflection Points:

100

Noticing and Interpreting

To be honest my expectations for this experience were moderate, not too high, but not too
low. I simply thought we would serve some food, talk to some homeless people, and chat with
the people working there. We did all of those things, but they were much more enjoyable and
fulfilling than I thought they would be! My experience exceeded my expectations. It felt good to
do good work for a population in need. It also enjoyed helping the workers run the serving and
clean up phase of the meal smoothly.
We served the homeless community. One large problem within this group is a lack of
mental health support. It seemed like many members of this community had mental health issues
that interfered with their daily lives. Another weakness is a general lack of resources and
education to for the homeless community to support themselves. A strength of this community is
that many of them seemed willing to do whatever they could, or were capable of, to help
themselves and others in the homeless community. Another strength is that there is a respectable
number of people and agencies in the area that reach out to this population in support of them.
My values and experiences definitely shapes how I think about the homeless community.
I grew up in a middle class home in a mostly middle class community. I cannot remember
anyone telling me, but from my up-bringing and other experiences, I got the notion that if
someone was homeless it was 100% their fault. However, since then, there have had a multitude
of other experiences that have lead me to think differently. At Randolph-Macon College I
minored in sociology and participated in Habitat for Humanity. This formal and informal
education showed me that many of my views towards homeless people were false. The education
and service learning experiences at Bon Secours have also taught me more about the homeless

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community. I am very fortunate to have had the up-bringing and experiences that I have had even
though they have changed over the years.

Responding

I have learned that the needs of this community are legion. They need mental health
support, help getting jobs and housing, they need clothes and food on a reliable basis. I did find
this service learning activity to be relevant to the community. At this lunch, they could eat as
much as they wanted, provided there was enough food prepared, they got to stay indoors for as
long as the lunch was going on, they could also take food to-go, and there was a 30 minute
church service provided as well.
There should be follow-up from the homeless and non-homeless members of the
community to support this group in need. I asked if the different churches and homeless shelters
communicated with one another about serving meals on different days so the homeless could get
a free meal every day of the week, but they said they did not, they simply provided a meal on a
given day of the week. I think it would be great if the different agencies communicated with one
another so there was a free meal every day, at least somewhere. When it can, the homeless
community does support themselves, at least in spirit. I think it would be cool to support this
strength, and have a meal and a social event at the same time. This way the homeless and nonhomeless can really talk and get to know one another, so we can hopefully better understand their
needs.

Reflecting on Service Learning

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This experience has helped me gain a better knowledge of the homeless community. It
will help me in the future when I have homeless patients and whenever I serve this population in
any capacity. It has helped influence my perception of my call to serve by showing me this
population really needs support. I have talked with my wife about maybe going back to Grace
and Holy Trinity on a few Fridays to serve the homeless.
A core tenet of servant leadership is freely giving of oneself in order to better the lives of
others while exhibiting the qualities of a leader. This tenet can be applied to our service learning
experience because all five of us in our group displayed the qualities of a servant leader. We
selflessly gave our time and energy to help a community in need.
We applied the heart by having our motivations being pure and not self-serving. We truly
wanted to help the homeless. We applied the head by carefully planning how we would help this
community in need. We called around to different agencies and planned to come on a given day
prepared with everything we would need. We utilized the hands by executing our plan. Once we
got there we asked those in charge what needed to be done and divided ourselves up according to
our strengths. We served, talked with the homeless, and cleaned up afterwards. Habits is applied
in this situation by quietly reflecting on the events of the day and truly trying to understand how
this population can be better helped.

Reflection-on-Action

I was surprised by a number of things. I was surprised by how much I got out of this
experience and how much I want to help this community in the future. I could see myself helping

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the homeless in this capacity in the near future. I was also surprised by how supportive the
homeless community was of itself. I saw some of the younger homeless people helping out the
older members of the community.
The skills I learned here will help me as a nurse. I now better understand the homeless
community and the resources available to them, so when I have a patient that is homeless I can
now better direct them to the resources they need. There were people from a wide variety of
ethnicities and ages at the shelter so I will be less likely to stereotype what a homeless person
should look like.
I think me and my fellow students had a positive impact on the community we served. I
believe we gave them a small measure of hope and reassurance that there is a world community
that helps look after them during their time of need. On a smaller level I believe we helped
brighten their day with simply being ourselves, and not treating them any differently than anyone
else. We had a genuine human connection with them and I believe that counts for a lot.

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