Adam Webb

Senior Integrative Seminar

Dr. Monsour
22 April 2019

My Social Action Project was to help raise awareness for and help out in any small way
to an organization in the area known as Wildlife Works. They are an organization that takes in
injured or sick animals and help them get better as quickly as possible. Then, if they can, they
release the animals back into the wild to live out their lives. The original design of the project
was to create a promotional video for the organization and then volunteer with them to help out
in some way for month or two. I would then also work to get a community event together to raise
awareness for Wildlife Works. The final part of my original plan was to organize a community
clean up day where people would come out and pick up trash at some predetermined location.
The project for the most part went along as originally planned. I did meet with Wildlife
Works and, with the help of my friend, created a promotional video that I posted on facebook
and was sent to the organization to be used at their own disposal. Due to some communication
issues with the organization, I was not able to volunteer as much as I originally intended. But I
did help out enough to learn about how they work and the people that work there. The next part
of the project involving the creation of a community event was not able to be completed before
the due date of the project due to some scheduling issues on campus. It is still being completed
during the coming week or two and it entails of the organization coming and giving an
educational show with some of their animals that can not be released into the wild. This event
would be hopefully be done on campus with the support of the Nature Club on campus to
promote some students to go and volunteer with them. The final part of the project involving the
trash will not be able to be completed due to the fact that there was a recent trash cleanup day
and there wasn’t enough time or interest in organizing another one with enough time in between
them.
At first when I was trying to implement this project, there was some communication
issues between me and Wildlife Works at the beginning. They had some people out of the office
and and took a lot longer for me to set up a time to meet and set up my project on their end. It
didn't take long after that to get my project started and get everything going. But other than
those communication issues and some scheduling issues on campus, the project went over
very well. This project has also reaffirmed my knowledge and experience with working with
other people to try and complete a project or goal. I have learned a lot about working with other
people in my time in Scouts and that really helped me out with this project. It helped me know
when I needed to pressure someone to complete something that they said they were going to
do or when you need a response to a message. But overall this project has not done much to
what I know about working together in a group due to the fact that I already had a lot of prior
experience.
When I was trying to figure out what I was going to do for my Social Action Project, I
looked at multiple resources to help me figure out a way to relate myself personally to who or
what I am trying to help. One of the resources that I used most to find inspiration was the
principles of Catholic Social Teaching. I focused on the principle of the Care for God’s creation
principle due to the fact that I am a Boy Scout. I have always had a love for nature and
everything that exists in it. I then looked for people or organizations that could use help in
manpower, promotion or some combination of both. This lead me to this organization and being
able to further my love of nature and helping it by helping this organization that does so much.
The organization completely fulfills this principle due to the fact that they care for not only the
environment but everything that lives in it. Everyday, they take care of a variety of animals that
are injured or sick that were brought to them with the intent of healing them. I feel that I have
helped fulfill this principle by helping them and by trying to help the environment in some way.
The next thing that I think that this project fulfills is the principle of justice. That is
because justice is the being fair to no matter what. I personally think that includes every living
thing including plants and animals. Even though some people might believe that animals do not
deserve the same rights as people but I believe that they do due to the fact that they are living,
breathing creatures that do not deserve ill treatment. I think that this project helped show how I
and others have this belief about how animals and the nature that surrounds us deserve the
same justice as we do.
When we are thinking about theory and practice, they end up going hand in hand. On
the first hand, you can not practice anything without a theory to practice. You need something to
be working towards when you are practicing. For example, in this project I was trying to practice
the theory that I pointed out above that every living thing deserves the same rights that we have.
I worked to show this by helping and promoting this organization that does this everyday with
the help of many volunteers. Now if you reverse the relation, when you practice something,
regularly or not, you can prove a theory no matter how simple or complex. If you practice a
certain belief or idea throughout your life, you can make a theory that revolves around that
practice prominent in other people’s lives. For example, if you pick up litter that you see, then
you might show other people the theory of a clean world. These two things work hand in hand
no matter how you think about it. You need theory to have something to practice and when you
practice something you help make a theory prominent in other people’s lives.
Overall, I think this project went well even though the original schedule and plan did not
go as originally intended. But I still think that I did help out Wildlife Works in multiple ways
through my time and the possible future time of myself and others interested by my work. I
personally witnessed what this organization has done for the wildlife that needed assistance due
to natural causes and the human population. I think that they are great organization that I am
very happy that I found out about and got to help out in some way. I think this experience has
taught me a lot about our community and the great organizations in it.
It has also taught me about how important it is to work with our community and to help
anyone that is in need. I think that this project has also taught me that I need to find more ways
to help people in my community. I do help my community in some small ways, but this project
has showed me that I need to find some more ways to help. There are a large amount of ways
that I can help people and organizations in my area. I think that I reached a lot of people through
social media and word of mouth with people I interact with. I have found a couple of people that
are very interested in volunteering with this organization in the coming future in some way. I
hope that this interest spreads to more people through others experiences and a desire to help
the environment.
For future semesters of this course, there would be a couple of things that I would
recommend to students taking it. The first thing that I would recommend be to make sure to
watch all of the videos and read all of the articles to their entirety. They are very informative and
also give great insight to your inner self and the world around you. The next piece of advice I
would give would be to really think about the questions that the professor puts in front of you.
They will really help you realize who or what is prominent in your life and what you should
prioritize. They really helped me realize these things and more. The final piece of advice that I
would give to future students would be to not wait until the last moment to do anything in this
course. Even if the task seems simple, make sure that you give each task assigned ample time
to think about and complete. Especially the larger assignments like the Social Action Project.
You should look at what is important to you and try to find a way to implement it into a project
that would help people in your community.
This project was a very great experience and has shown me some new things about our
community that I didn’t know about. This project also let me help many animals hopefully by
helping this great organization for the time I was able to. It has also helped me spread the
interest in helping out the less fortunate whether they be people or animals. This project and
class has taught me a lot and I am very grateful for it.