The Effects of Goodwill on People

Goodwill gives many people opportunities to work and supports the improvement of the community. The agency website mentions that "Goodwill works to enhance the dignity and quality of life of individuals and families by strengthening communities, eliminating barriers to opportunity, and helping people in need reach their full potential through learning and the power of work."Also, it allows people to have jobs at goodwill especially those that have difficulties finding a job. The agency website states that "Goodwill serves a high needs population and offers a diverse range of programming, including advocacy, education, training, life skills and job placement, said Erinn Andrews, COO of Philanthropedia." This means that Goodwill serves many people in our society. The agency mentions that “We hope donors will reward Goodwill for its superb efforts to develop and advance the skills of people facing challenges to finding employment while strengthening those individuals’ relationships with their families and communities.”

However, I believe if goodwill disappeared from the community it would have a big impact on a lot of families and people that can't afford to buy from other stores. Also, I think it would affect anyone that regularly shops there. In other words, the customers and employees because they both benefit from the agency.

Some roles I filled for the agency are had to greet customers in the front of the store which was very interesting. Then, I sorted some cloth and put them on hangers. I met seniors mostly working in goodwill. Also, the customers had many adults and a few children that came with them. I believe it was mostly different ages starting from the early twenties until the late seventies.

Santrock states that "Egocentrism is the inability to distinguish between one’s own perspective and someone else’s perspective"(2017,pg.144). In other words, when infants ages six months until six years aren’t able to take your point of view of things. For example, there was a six-year-old with his mom that wanted her to buy him a small car. Then, refused to get out of it being scared she would not buy it. He had an identical car at home but still wanted to buy this one. Then the boy kept following her with it until it was time to leave, he thought she would buy it even though he had one which is very egocentric.

Another thing that Santrock mentions is that "The contemporary life-events approach emphasizes that how life events influence the individual’s development depends not only on the life event itself but also on mediating factors, the individual’s adaptation to the life-event, the life-stage context, and the socio-historical context"(pg.357). The worker I assisted to distribute fabric informed me that she had a friend back in college that was gifted and getting remarkably good marks. Then suddenly, he started to experience schizophrenia which is when someone has difficulties with the ability to think or behave clearly. He didn’t have any coping strategies and lack of family support. I believe that if his family was there for him then it would have been a little better. He was sent to prison multiple times and couldn’t really control anything. It is an extreme life event that happened suddenly and had a big impact on how things would have planned out for him. When he was diagnosed with mental illness, many things changed for him in which he’d most likely not get a good paying job or not have one at all. In other words, he would be dependent on others for most of his life and wouldn’t really know what is going on and it is often a lifelong mental illness. However, the worker stated how she still is in contact with him and that he’s getting better through psychotherapy and other provided services.