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Name: Taylor Wahl

Hometown: Whittier, CA

Major: Nursing

Engagement Track: Leadership

Rural Health Scholars Service Trip

Salt Lake City, UT

For my EDGE project, I was given the opportunity to be a leader for a cultural immersion service trip to Salt Lake City, UT. I worked alongside two other students to plan and lead the trip. Rural Health Scholars(RHS) is a program at Southern Utah University(SUU) that organizes the cultural immersion trips. The two other students and I are enrolled in the RHS program. The three of us took about two to three months to before the trip for planning. The planning process consisted of contacting many organizations to volunteer with, setting times with the organizations, and making a schedule.

Once we got to Salt Lake City, we all got to know one another and went over the schedule for the week. Most of our time was spent volunteering with various organizations who serve the community. Some of the organizations include food banks, The Good Samaritan House, Globus Relief, the Ronald McDonald House, and Catholic Community Services. While the trip was mostly for service to the community, we also took some time for tours. As RHS students, the group consisted of pre-med, pre-nursing, and pre-dental students. Since we are all planning for a future in health care, we toured the Shriner's Hospital, the University of Utah's graduate schools, and Neuroworx, which is a physical rehabilitation center.

I was inspired to go on this trip for many reasons. The number one reason for going on the trip was to volunteer my time and help those in need. As a pre-nursing student, it is important to work and engage with the public and feel confident talking to people you do not know. Anther reason was to gain more service hours, which I need to get into nursing school. I became more inspired to go on the trip by a staff member in the RHS office when she told me there was a leadership option available. Though it was a little bit of a financial stressor, I made it work and I am glad I did.

This was the first trip to Salt Lake City that RHS organized, so there were some challenges that we had to face. The most challenging thing that I faced was trying to find organizations to volunteer with. Since they had never done a trip to Salt Lake City, we had nothing to go off of for reference. Luckily, there was a website that I was told about to help find organizations who take volunteers. One other thing that I found to be difficult was that I was the only pre-nursing student. This became a challenge while planning because I was planning tours of the medical and dental school for those students, but since there was only one pre-nursing student, I was unable to schedule a tour. Through some extra effort, I was able to figure something out and plan accordingly with the tour of the medical school.

Since this was a service trip, many people benefitted from it other than the other students and me. We were able to serve lunches and dinners to those in need. With two of the organizations we volunteered with we were feeding the homeless, while with one of the other organizations we prepared and served dinner to patients in the Salt Lake City Children's Hospital and their families. Not all of our service was feeding those in need; We also held conversations with adult students who spoke very little English, as it is their second language. The helped them learn their English and I think it was definitely a benefit to them.

I am extremely glad, grateful, and humbled to have had the opportunity to go on a service trip like this one. The entire process of planning and executing the trip was a benefit to me. I was able to work on time management skills while planning the trip, and I learned to work with other more cohesively. While on the trip, I made some connections with the individuals we were serving. Those connections are things I will keep with me as a reminder of this trip. Also, I became friends with some of the other RHS students that were on the trip. It was nice to spend a week with other students who have the same interests and goals as I do.

"Sitting with the students and talking with them about their ventures from foreign countries was extremely rewarding and eye opening. I learned so much from them...just by listening to their stories."

"The little girl in the hospital who seemed so shy and timid was such an amazing, beautiful girl. She doesn't see or feel it, but she is full of life and I wish she had the courage to let more people see it as well."