Blog 3

    After doing some volunteer work and learning more about gift-giving and memory and commemoration in class, I've learned how they affect the motives of many people to contribute their time and money to a charitable cause. In class we talked a lot about how gift-giving also requires reciprocity, and I think that has a huge impact on the amount of contribution people have with their time and money to a charitable cause like the Oshkosh food pantry for example. During my volunteer hours for the mini golf annual Oshkosh event on main street, I spent seven hours volunteering with a friend from class and 50/50 raffle people popped into our station throughout the event. The raffle donated all the money to Oshkosh food pantry, but I think people would be a lot less likely to enter the raffle if there wasn't a basket to win for the raffle prize. The people donating money for a raffle ticket are the original gift givers, but without the reciprocity of the prize, people would definitely be a lot less likely to donate. Another example of this was that if you donate 4 food items, you can take one stroke off of your total score. If you donated 16 items, you could take four strokes off of your groups total score. So, without the advantage against other teams, I think people would be even less likely to donate food items as well. The food items are the gift-giving aspect and the score of the team becoming better is the gift of reciprocity. This community aspect now feels very similar to the communities then as we talked in class about how when a gift was given, a gift of reciprocity was expected in return. Like jewelry, gold coins, a house, or even a sword depending on how rich you were and the richer you were, the better the gift usually. With memory and commemoration affecting people and their contribution to a charitable cause, I believe in the same concept that there is some underlying hope for oneself to be commemorated and recognized for being so generous after donating a large amount. For example, a field or lobby or courtyard being named after them to commemorate their charitable donation. In class we talked about memory and commemorating being about praying for the dead to honor and remember them and it was also expressed not just in a religious sense by prayer but also physical with floor tiles, and more. Overall, I think the concept stands for commemoration, memory, and for gift-giving that receiving reciprocity plays a huge role then and now on how much time and money people donate.