March Update

Total Service Hours: 7

March Service Hours: 4

For this month, I had the pleasure of volunteering with Second Harvest Food Bank of New Orleans at their Broadmoor Food Pantry. At that site, we passed out meals to people in the area who were in need of food items. The prepackaged boxes were brought from the main warehouse in Harahan, as well as the prepackaged individual meals.  Along with those meals being passed out, a few individuals had their meals delivered to them if they lived in the nearby area and were not able to come physically get their meals. In the prepackaged boxes, there were nonperishable food items that were previously sorted. While I typically volunteer in their main warehouse to assist in the initial food packaging or sorting, it was more gratifying physically handing out meals to individuals. While it is still satisfying to know I am helping assist in the program itself, it was better to see and be part of the service first hand and interact with many different people and see how the acts of service brighten their moods and add positivity to their day.

Academically, the month of March was great. My favorite part of the curriculum was constructing and presenting for my Neuropharmacology and Endocrine Pharmacology electives. Through the topics I had presented on, I was able to learn a little bit more about substance abuse and its receptors, dopamine, and how undergoing stress affects your immune system. The Neuropharmacology assignment really pushed me to learn more about substance abuse in general and gave me a better understanding as to why addiction is very prevalent and almost irreversible due to the lack of medication variety available. Endocrine Pharmacology's topic of stress and immunity was heavily related to my undergraduate Immunology course, so I was interested in being able to compare the two with previous knowledge I had and really research and determine key factors that played a role as to why stress depressed the immune system. 

Overall, March was a great month for learning beyond what was given and for stepping beyond my boundaries of typically service and interacting with individuals within the Second Harvest platform. 


- Tiffany C.

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