I have participated in numerous community services throughout the last few years.  I have helped a former teacher put on a baseball camp for children in grades 1-8, I helped my church's youth group build a float for a local parade, I have umpired local little league baseball games, and have done numerous other odds and ends around my community.

While I helped at the baseball clinic, I worked with kids on their hitting and their defense.  I found this experience the most rewarding of any community service I have ever done.  It was fun to work with kids who viewed baseball as a game and not the business that it is at the professional level.  The most challenging aspect of this camp was working with the younger children who were less developed in the fundamentals of baseball.  However, after seeing a vast improvement in their skills, I found working with these children the most rewarding of all the children I worked with.  This experience related to teaching because I was instructing the younger children much like a teacher or coach would in a classroom or a baseball field.  I believe this prepared me to become a teacher and hopefully a baseball coach as well.

Another community service I performed was helping my local church's youth group build a float for a 125th anniversary parade.  In doing this I worked with high school-aged adolescents and together we built a float for the parade.  I found this experience to be very fun.  It really did not feel like it was service, I was merely working with friends (I went to high school with many of the students, those who I did not attend school with I knew either through church or my little brother).  We had a great time building the float, and the parade was very fun too.  This applied to teaching because I was one of the few persons working on the float who had extensive knowledge of construction.  I was instructing the others and together we built quite a nice flight.

For the last few summers I have been called upon to umpire local little league baseball games, I do receive a small fee for my services so essentially it is not community service; however, umpires are rarely available for these games and most people refuse to umpire these games, so it is still a service to the community.  I enjoy doing this, because I get a kick out of watching the little leaguers play ball.  It really doesn't apply to teaching; however, it does apply to baseball, and I wish to coach baseball while I teach.

I helped lay tile and rebuild a baseball field that had trouble draining water, I helped my father take care of the Armstrong Township High School FFA ag plot, I was a D.A.R.E. role model in my senior year of high school.  This is not an extensive list of the community services I have performed. If you would like me to go more in detail, I would be happy to answer any questions, please feel free to email me.

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