Ebony Jack: A Pharm Blog

December Community Service Hours: 7 Semester Community Service Hours: 17 We are officially in our last days! Fall Pharmacology days that is! I can't believe it's almost over. For December's community service, I completed three service opportunities: Adopt a Senior Holiday Edition, Operation Value Our Vets, and The Angel Card Project.  Adopt a Senior and Operation Value Our Vets were two opportunities sponsored through Ochsner Serves, a volunteer organization for Ochsner employees looking to serve their local communities. For Adopt a Senior, we partnered with Home Instead to buy and wrap gifts for a senior at three local retirement communities: Audubon Retirement Village, Terraces in Tulane, and Ferncrest. Due to current restrictions, I was unable to deliver the gifts personally to each senior, which I was hoping we would get to do because that's my favorite part of volunteer activities like this. However, the volunteer coordination team is collecting all the donated gif...

  November Community Service Hours: 5 Semester Community Service Hours: 10 For this month's community service, I decided to make "Blessing Bags" filled with self-care items to gift to people facing homelessness. This is an activity that I have done before, but this time I conducted some research before constructing the bags to make sure I put appropriate items in each bag. This time around, my research led me to do something I had not thought to do previously, which was to include specific products for feminine hygiene and young children. That being said, I went supply shopping and constructed bags for men, women, and kids. The men's bag included bandages, men's socks, face & body cleansing wipes, lip balm, tissues, a bottle of water, and snacks. The women's bag contained similar items with the addition of menstrual pads, tampons, and feminine cleansing cloths, while the kids' bags included the addition of fruit snacks and baby wipes. After the bags we...

October community service hours: 0 Semester community service hours total: 5 For this month's community service, I was, unfortunately, unable to attend an event I planned to volunteer at with the Second Harvest Food Bank due to a tragedy in my family. We lost our grandfather to COVID/pneumonia complications on October 14th. It's been tough, especially for my mom, but I try to be there for her as much as possible. It was nice to see members of my family that I had not seen in a very long time, but I wish it had not been under those circumstances. As for school, I am really starting to see just how valuable this program is in everyday life. For instance, before starting this program, I would see pharmacological terms and medicine names being mentioned in TV advertisements, my job at urgent care, etc., and would be slightly intimidated because there was so much I didn't know. Now, I hear them mentioned and I get excited like "OMG, I know what that word means!" or ...

  September Community Service Hours: 2 For this month's community service, I volunteered at Second Harvest Food Bank as a community kitchen volunteer. As a volunteer, the first task was to form an assembly line to pack meal kits that consisted of pork chops, mashed potatoes, vegetable medleys, rice, bean, and garlic bread. After this was completed, we helped with other tasks that included prepping mason jars for the chefs' future meals, mincing green onions and jalapeños, and placing fish on baking sheets to be baked. One thing that surprised me to see was that majority of the volunteers were retired elders. They shared stories with me about how volunteering at the food bank has become an integral part of their lives, while many of them volunteer there several times a week. I viewed this as an extremely important event to partake in because these meals go out to local communities and facilities to feed those that have trouble securing a nutritious meal. I enjoyed participating ...

August Community Service Hours: 3 This has been a month for new beginnings! I am so excited to be able to say that I am now a grad student! Starting graduate school at Tulane has already begun to be a beautiful adventure: practicing efficient study skills, meeting new friends, and taking the next steps toward becoming a competent healthcare provider. I definitely have my work cut out for me, but I am ecstatic to see what lessons the future will bring.      The community service event I took part in this month was hosted by my sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., through our initiative "Operation Big Book Bag". The focus of this program is to provide support to school-aged children that are currently facing challenges that could negatively impact their education. This support consists of many different assets including volunteering at educational school events, raising money for essential school supplies, and tutoring.      For this session, each member...