Story of Giving from Veronica Pantaleon

My passion for community service started in the Spring of 2012. I’m a business major at California State University Fullerton and a member of America’s foremost business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi. One of the things Delta Sigma Pi teaches is “he profits most who serves best.” You receive rewards from giving whether it be the acknowledgment of your peers or just the satisfaction of knowing you've made a positive impact in the world. Prior to pledging, I did not have any significant experience in giving back to the community. I've done indirect things like raising money for charities and giving money to the poor but nothing that directly involved donating my time and effort to serve the community. We were required to plan a community service event as part of our pledging program, and my pledge class chose to do our event at Isaiah House, a homeless shelter in Orange County. Lea, the owner of Isaiah House, greeted us and put us to work right away. There were many regular volunteers who were in charge of transporting donations of clothes, food, toiletries, and other miscellaneous supplies to the shelter. As they arrived we would sort out the donations and move them into storage areas. A group of four generous people are involved in running Isaiah House, but a lot of the work is also handled by volunteers who come to help prepare meals for the homeless and to help the owners of the shelter with upkeep. Making meals for the poor made me realize how much we take a warm meal and a roof over our heads for granted. It made me thankful for what I have to see what others don’t have. When we were finished with our assigned tasks, Lea told us about the history of Isaiah House. She founded it along with her husband and another volunteer. They live at Isaiah House and run it because they want to live their faith by doing charitable works. She talked about how rewarding it was to help people, and how she succeeded in providing a place for homeless people to stay when other shelters were closed or had limited space. Her humbleness and dedication to giving inspired me to pursue more opportunities to give back to the community and become the Vice President of Community Service for my chapter of Delta Sigma Pi.