My name is Mark Sundman and I am currently a sophomore here at Elon. I am an Exercise Sports Science major and hope to minor in Public Health. Growing up in New Jersey I attended a smaller private school from 6th-12th grade that put a huge emphasis on the importance of Service Learning. Starting my freshmen year the school required us to complete at least 24 hours of community service a year and awarded the students that completed 50+ and 100+ hours. During this time I quickly became involved through various organizations that were either affiliated with my school and the local church. I began making routine trips to the soup kitchen and once I was old enough I became involved with Habitat for Humanity. I took 2 separate trips with habitat for humanity, one with my school and one with the church, and loved both experiences as I was able to see the immediate impact of our hard work. My sophomore year I got involved with my high school’s blood drive and for the following two years I became a “Blood Drive Captain” and coordinated the event with fellow students and faculty.
More recently I have become very interested in pursuing a career in the Medical Field because some family members have recently had some horrible luck with their health and I have seen many doctors fight to save their lives and I want to have the ability to help others simarily later in life. This being said, I spent the past summer training to become a certified Emergency Medical Technician and plan on using this skill for community service in the future. I hope that I will be able to use some of these skills by working at a hospital in South Africa because I know that there are many people in need over there. Even though it is highly unlikely that I will be able to perform any medical procedures, I am looking forward to boosting the moral of the patients at the hospital. I spent several years working at a day camp and enjoy spending time with children so I feel that spending time with children (both in and outside a hospital) would be the perfect service learning opportunity for me while we are in South Africa. I am looking forward to experiencing things that I am sure I will never forget