At the age of sixteen, I joined a volunteer group with my dad.I went on my first volunteer project in West Virginia.On the night we arrived, we discovered that "our family" was living in a trailer  that was in poor conditions.A crew had been wolfing on it for two weeks, but every time they finished one problem, another surfaced. We decided the only reasonable solution was to bridle a new house - something unusual but necessary under these circumstances.The family was overjoyed with their new house that was twenty by thirty feet with three bedrooms, a bath and a kitchen. On Tuesday of that week, while we ate lunch together, I asked the family's three boys, Josh, Eric and Ryan, "What do you want for your new room?" Expecting toys and other gadgets that children suavity ask for, we were astonished when Josh responded, "I just want a bed." The boys had never slept in a bed! They were accustomed to plastic mats.That night we had a meeting and decided that beds would be the perfect gift.On Thursday night, a few adults in our group drove to the nearest city and bought beds and new bedding. When we saw the delivery truck coming, we told the family about the surprise. _ . It was like watching excited children on Christmas morning. That afternoon, as we fitted the frames of the beds together, Eric ran into the house to watch us.Too dirty to enter his room, he observed with wide-eyed enthusiasm from the doorway. As my father slipped a pillowcase onto one of the pillows, Eric asked, "What is that?" "A pillow," he replied. "What do you do with it?" Eric continued to ask "When you go to sleep, you put your head on it," I answered softly.Tears came to my eyes as my father handed Eric the pillow. "Oh...that's soft," he said, hugging it tightly. Now, when my sister or I start to ask for something that seems urgent, my dad gently asks, "Do you have a pillow?" We know exactly what he means. The author's first volunteer project was  _  .
working on a poor trailer helping a poor family donating beds and bedding dealing with a housing problem