In the fall of 2005 I volunteered 30 hours to the Johnson City Senior Center located at 607 Myrtle Avenue in Johnson City Tennessee.  I was volunteering there as part of a Service Learning class my sophomore year in college.  At the center I was able to help with many different areas.  I spent time conversing with the people who used the center, ranging in ages from 55 up, helping to run the front desk, helping to organize and run activities that were held at the center, such as dances and games, and learning about what went on there.  I spent a lot of time with some of the citizens that use the center.  Most of them have many medical conditions but have found ways to deal with them and have fun while doing it.  One woman in particular had went through an amputation of her lower left leg and currently needed a walker to be mobile.  I learned that she spent everyday at the Senior Center, from the time they opened in the morning until they shut their doors at night.  She told me that if it was not for the senior center she would never have the chance to leave her house.  Most of the seniors that I spent time with felt as though most people pushed them off in everyday life and treated them as if they were incapable of doing anything that was worthwhile.  I must say that I met some of the most intelligent human beings in that center than I had every come across.  They came to the center for friendship and sometimes for family.  Some of the seniors had lost their spouses and had no one else to talk to other than their friends that they had found at the Senior Center.  I ended up spending more than the time required for the class at the senior center because of my yearning to listen to the seniors’ stories and help them with every day life.  I was able to gain a better understanding of generations that seem to be getting left behind.  One of my last days there a man who came to the center everyday had a heart attack.  I sat and talked to the other seniors about it thinking that they would be very upset with his condition, but no one seemed to be upset.  They were all too hopeful, hopeful about his return, than to be upset and sure enough the last day I was there I walked in to find him, only a few days after the heart attack, playing pool with the rest of his fellow friends.  I believe that this experience will definitely help me in my career.  It has given me a greater understanding for those in their older years of life and a yearning to help them get their voices heard.