Volunteering during Hurricane Ike, Working with Children with Disabilities

The Hughen Center is a facility in Texas witch holds a lot of children who have disabilities. Most of the children were put there because the parent didn’t want them or they were abused. Sometimes they were just mistreated and also couldn’t take care of them, so the only choice they had was to give them up. The children there are sweet and all of them deserve a family that love them. Some kids like that don’t have that opportunity.

That’s why I am glad to say that the kids get to stay at a place where the staff treat them with lots of love and get to be part of a family with each other. Most facilities like that don’t have that.

During hurricane Ike was the time that I have made a huge difference for the facility. There was a time when the whole Hughen center and faculty had to evacuate because the hurricane was coming towards us and the facility.

That’s when I wanted to go along with them because they would appreciate the help and I wanted to really help out. The shelter that we stayed at was a church. While we were there Id help with things like in the kitchen. There was one cook and she needed the help because there several people to cook for. Helping in the kitchen required me to do was the dishes and putting them away, assist the cook cooking, help serving out the food.

Get quality help now

RhizMan

Verified

Proficient in: Disability

4.9 (247)

“ Rhizman is absolutely amazing at what he does . I highly recommend him if you need an assignment done ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

After serving out the food and everything there were children who couldn’t feed them selves, and there was not all the staff there to feed the kids, so I decided to help the ones who had to wait. After all that it was cleaning up time.

During the time of the evacuation, it was really boring with nothing do. All they could do really was throw a football around. But the Children in the wheelchairs who didn’t get to do anything like that but sit down in one place, which to me didn’t seem fair at all. So I would take my time and just talk about what they wanted to talk about and just hang with them to make the time pass by. The whole thing went on by a week or so. After the hurricane had passed by (which had done some damage to the facility) I was always still there to help with anything. When I see one of the staff folding cloths I would just join and help and put them away.

It was the greatest opportunity to help and work there with the children because it made me realize what I wanted to do in the future. I am very good at working with children who have disabilities and have been because I have quite few brothers and sisters who have Down syndrome. At the Center they had an occupational therapist who worked with the children. She would make sure they had whatever they needed to make them feel at home. When she did her job with the children they were just so happy and loved working with her. That’s always a good thing to see. Id thought to myself “that’s the kind of job for me because that fits the requirements that I’m good at doing”. Working with children who have disabilities is a great thing to do. I love working with children. I understand them in a way that sometimes no one can. Being an occupational therapist is my dream to do.