2008 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship 
for Community Service

Scholarship Finalist

Noredia Irene Ojogun

UT Southwestern Graduate School 
of Biomedical Sciences
 4th Year

Noredia's Essay on Community Service

    “Thank you” were two words that my mother taught me to always use when someone did something for me. As a result, in my earlier years, I often waited around to hear “thank you” every time I was of service to someone. In fact, often times I would reply “you’re welcome” even before hearing it.  I was often filled with disappointment when I felt denied of those two polite words expressing gratitude for my efforts. Over the years, I have learned that truly being of service requires no thanks but rather, a deep desire to make a difference in an individual’s life, no matter how little.

    The Graduate Student Organization (GSO) has afforded me the opportunity to serve the community in many ways. For the past two years, I have served as the GSO volunteer chair and been responsible for planning monthly volunteer activities.

    My first experience as the volunteer chair occurred shortly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I joined a committee on campus to brainstorm possible ways to help the thousands of evacuees in the Dallas area. Though I lacked medical skills, I wanted to be part of the relief effort. The evacuees were in need of basic items including food, personal hygiene items and baby care items. These items were donated abundantly by UT Southwestern staff and students, and for two weeks I coordinated the transport of the donated items from campus to the North Texas Food Bank where they were distributed to the evacuees. Since then I have coordinated many drives including clothes and shoes drives benefiting the Genesis Women’s Shelter, toy drives during the holidays benefiting the Casa Shelter, cell phones drives to the Wireless Foundation who reprogram them to have 911 capabilities and donate them to victims of domestic violence, and blood drives with Carter Blood Care.

    My role as volunteer chair is not limited to on-campus drives. Some of the monthly volunteer activities that I have participated in, and recruited other graduate students for, include building homes for Habitat for Humanity, making hundreds of sandwiches for the homeless at the Soup Mobile in downtown Dallas, and walking at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to support breast cancer research. One of my most enjoyable moments was putting shingles on the roof of a house in West Dallas for Habitat for Humanity. Besides getting a good workout, I felt that I was instrumental in ensuring that a family literally received a good roof over their heads.

Outside of the GSO, I have found other ways to give back to the community. One of them is through an annual campus wide project called United to Serve, which is a health and games fair held at T.J. Rusk Middle School. The academic rating at T.J Rusk is very poor and a majority of the students are from low income families. In 2005, I joined the United to Serve planning committee and became the volunteer chair. My major role was to determine the number of volunteers needed for each of the booths at the health fair and to recruit enough volunteers to help with the event. This was done by holding campus wide meetings to provide UT Southwestern staff, students and faculty with information about the health fair and the various volunteer opportunities available. With the help of a medical student, I was also able to match volunteers with different tasks and manage staffing the booths at the health fair through a web based program. On the day of the health fair, my role among other things was to ensure that the volunteers were comfortable in their booths, direct traffic and help with any booths that required extra hands. The most memorable thing for me while volunteering with United to Serve was during the health fair in 2006. I noticed that after waiting for several hours, there were a few ladies from the community who weren’t able to get free mammograms due to time and space issues. I informed Wes Norred of the problem and he gave me a few of his business cards to distribute to the ladies so they could call him the following week to schedule a free mammogram. Within a few seconds I was surrounded by about 12 ladies all stretching their arms for a card so they could get the free mammogram. I was deeply touched by this scene and realized only then the depth to which the health fair had made an impact on peoples’ lives. The United to Serve health fair has been very successful over the last two years with over 200 volunteers involved and about 600 participants from the community in 2007. The planning process for the next health fair is underway and I look forward to another fun and successful event.

    Recently, I was appointed as the Quest for a Career (QFC) chair and this has allowed me to effectively serve my fellow graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the most gratifying way. QFC is a student run program, sponsored by the dean’s office and works to introduce grad students/postdocs to the variety of career options open to those with PhDs in the biological sciences. My responsibilities as chair include identifying and inviting potential speakers across the country based on students’ interests, arranging meetings between speakers and students/post-docs, advertising upcoming seminars and ensuring that the audience is well fed during the seminars. QFC is truly beneficial because it gives students an opportunity to learn of possible careers that they never thought existed and more importantly it allows them to network, especially during their final years while they’re in the job-seeking process.

    Some other events that I have participated in while a student at UT Southwestern include helping with carnival games at Holiday in the Park which benefits children from economically disadvantaged families, educating high school students and teachers about science and graduate school through the Science Teacher Access to Resources at Southwestern (STARS) and selling tickets at the St Luke Catholic church fall festival which is geared toward raising money to eliminate the church debt and maintaining the church facilities.

    Although I do not always come in contact with recipients of my volunteer efforts, the thought that something I’ve done is beneficial to one or more individuals encourages me to continue to commit my time to helping others. These individuals are not able to shake my hand, smile and offer their thanks since we never meet. However, each time my efforts change the life of another for the better, I am rewarded with a sense of satisfaction and greater connection to my community. Ironically, it is I who now says “thank you” for the opportunity to serve. I plan to continue to do so.