In high school, I was told that “in order to get into a good college,” I would have to do community service. Kids around me began volunteering at soup kitchens and nursing homes, and I figured that if they could do it, so could I. So I did.

I started my volunteer work at a “rehabilitation facility”—not the rehab stars go to, but the rehab your grandmother would visit when she got out of hip surgery. Except, this was not only a rehabilitation center. It was a “home”. Technically, it was a “residential facility,” but calling it “rehab” gave the people inside some semblance of hope—they were only there to get better and go home, right? There was also one floor reserved for “psych patients,” but most of them could care less what the place was called; one lady with schizophrenia was earnestly convinced that the entire building was her castle.

You marked your visit by signing in at a desk right past the two layers of automatic double doors, which would glitch and beep at you every now and then. The doorways were lined with sensors, which corresponded to electronic bracelets forcibly worn by some of the residents. They wanted out, but the second they passed through the front doors, the alarm would sound. A nurse told me it was “for their own good”.

At the Thanksgiving luncheon I volunteered at, only one resident’s family showed up. Despite the overwhelming sense of obligation, it seemed like a nice gesture. However, the other fifty residents in the room just stared at the floor, either too sad to even be jealous, or totally asleep. Although I was completely removed from the situation, it was pretty depressing to witness.

When we started talking about doing community service in Freshman Seminar, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to volunteer, but I knew exactly where I didn’t. Some people have tried to convince me that by volunteering at a nursing home, you bring joy into these peoples’ lives, but I find that hard to wrap my mind around. The fact that the residents have essentially been abandoned and left to die is a humongous elephant in the room, and it’s something I can’t see past.

So, that is why I am going to clean up some parks.