Play Acting and Candy Machines

This week at the Boys & Girls Club there was a church group volunteering at the club. As Bonners serving our community allows us to make long lasting relationships with the people we serve and hopefully make a long term difference that the people who only volunteer for a short period of time don’t have the capability to accomplish. However, one of the great things about having so many volunteers for such a short period of time is that there is the opportunity to change up the everyday routine and add some extra excitement to the days. With this church group at the Boys & Girls Club the kids were able to perform short plays about anti-bullying. The kids were great! They were so excited to be doing something new and be able to perform it in front of all of their friends. Even though it was impossible to understand the kids in most of the acts and some of their plays didn’t actually cover bullying, the kids learned so much from the experience (like hopefully not to bully one another and public speaking) and they really enjoyed it!

Since most of the kids have managed to read almost, if not all of the books available to the Boys & Girls Club Mr. Chris, the staff member of the middle age group, and I had the kids act out the short story “Blame it on the Wolf”. This spin-off of LIttle Red Riding allowed the kids to act out the characters and really gave them the opportunity to hone their public speaking skills. Some the kids loved it and others really looked like they would rather have been anywhere else, but overall most the kids definitely enjoyed this reading time more than than any other.

The Border Collie Rescue was also an interesting place this week. We were clearing up the yard which basically translates to getting rid of the twenty-five of so candy machines (90s flashback) located next to one of the sheds. Ani, Abby and I probably made some significant damage on the mosquito population considering how much sitting water was lodged into those machines. All of the events of this week have made one thing clear: being a Bonner is never boring and you never know what to expect.

Wait, they steal the babies?!

This week, we visited the Duvall Home, Hope Reins, the Literacy Council, and Grace House Pregnancy Resource Center. Whew! Funny story with Hope Reins though... Heather and I get all the way out there, and we can't find Hope anywhere. We see horses. Plenty of horses; girls riding horses, horses trotting around, etc. Naturally, we call Hope to see where she is. No answer. We drive up to the house, we drive around the barn, and nothing. Unfortunately, that was a bust. Considering that this is the first time this has happened all summer, I really can't complain. On the other hand, our visit at the Grace House Pregnancy Resource Center went really well! I went with Savannah on the day she was finally announcing her pregnancy to everyone. As soon as she told Donna, Savannah was presented with a tiny, life-like 3-month old synthetic baby. She had one of these fake babies for every stage of pregnancy and told us that she had to be careful with them because she's had them stolen several times. After all the baby talk, we spent a good hour discussing what kind of help is needed over at the center. Of course, this site is a tricky one because of its mission and beliefs. However, as long as a student is on board with the center's values, there's no issue!

This summer has been a great opportunity for me to work on strategies for the upcoming year. I know that once the year starts, it becomes hectic. I'm deeply appreciative for the chance to reach out to so many of our community partners. I've learned so much, and I already miss the one on one meetings we were able to have. I hope to continue following up with partners to better understand how community engagement is changing with each new incoming class. It's been a challenge for me to change my perspective, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Last week Of SoS

Actually, I wasn't supposed to write anymore, but I just wanted to write my last post about this little kid named Guilherme. Guilherme is one of the 2-year olds that I worked with this summer. So, Guilherme is 2 and he has a brother and a sister (they are older than him). He is currently malnourished and so are his siblings. Their mother is single and the four of them live inside one of those cardboard kinda houses. He is the sweetest thing I've ever laid eyes on ❤️ So, during my weeks volunteering there, he got really attached to me. I got attached to him too. I started to learn more about him and we found out that his mom didn't have any money for groceries. Coincidently enough, the lady that assists my grandma lives close to Guilherme and his family, therefore, she gave us more info on his family. 

I bought him new shoes, new clothes, and underwear. We also bought things for his siblings. Mom gave some of her clothes to Gui's mother as well. Now, every two weeks my mom gives them groceries. 

I was supposed to take him to the mall to play with him in a game/arcade area we have, but he was scared to go because he has never been in a car before.

I am so so thankful and lucky to have done Summer of Service this summer, because I got to meet this amazing child ❤️

Hope you guys had as great of an experience as mine!

Andrea:)

Week 7 at Siena

This week, I experienced more turmoil at the Albany United Methodist Society as our first campers arrived. Preparation work on the building was completed just the day before our second scheduled start of the summer program.

On the day of the opening, Maura and I were very concerned that no children would come in. Indeed, after an hour of inactivity, it seemed as though our fears would be confirmed. Then a father and his two sons came in and I was introduced to another Jason, this one ten years of age. He and his brother Ryan were the only clients I had to deliver my seven youth employees, so one of the first issues that would persist throughout the week became painfully clear. As the day waned on, only two more children arrived, a brother and sister named Harrison and Trinese. This meant that even if I specifically assigned a counselor to a child, I had three extra counselors on hand with absolutely nothing to do. They quickly became disinterested in their jobs and sat talking to each other or looking at their phones for most of their shifts. This situation persisted into the afternoon shift, where the counselors simply counted the hours until the program day was over.

This first day was repeated with slight variation on the next two. Two more campers, sisters Divinity and Nativitiy, joined our group, but with six children the majority of the activities I had planned during the first month here, carrying the expectation of twenty or thirty members, were rendered useless. The campers were more than content to play sports and run around inside the gym or put their creative spirits to work via arts and crafts. Most of the campers took to most of the counselors fairly quickly, with Jason and Ryan being the exceptions. While they adored me and constantly sought out my attention, whenever I needed to leave the program area for administrative duties they attempted to find me unsupervised, causing more than one headache.

On Friday, our scheduled field trip days, the campers besides Jason and Ryan (simply didn't show), myself, Maura, Cari, and our camp nurse Roberta took a trip to Methodist Farms, a private campsite/vacation area for members of the methodist network churches. It was a gorgeous day out and we were able to swim in the lake onsite for hours, much to the extreme joy of our campers. The men and women running the farm prepared a delicious lunch for us and we spent some great time together with them eating and sharing some information about ourselves. By the time we got back to Albany, we were all exhausted from the effort but supremely glad to have gone out.

"Your values logo looks like a..."

This week was a fun one! The Bonner Summer Leadership Program kiddos arrived, and as always, I had site visits to keep me busy. The first visit that we were got to take the highschoolers to was University Center East. I was happy to be able to help out at the center, as they had expressed their dire need for volunteers during our site visit not too long ago. The kiddos, along with Pat, Heather and I, were given a tour of the facility. It was good for them to see that there is a big difference between nursing homes and retirement homes. After the tour, we were tasked with giving some of the residents hand massages. I could sense the apprehension as soon as we were given our task, but I knew we;d be able to handle it! It ended up being a great day, and I feel that it really challenged everyone to step outside of their comfort zones.

Our site visit with the Domestic Abuse Council went well! We were able to discuss what has and has not worked with college volunteers that the council has had in the past. As Heather and I reviewed the Community Partner manual with Lynn, she couldn't help but let us know that our 4-core value logo looked like a certain womanly body part. Needless to say, Heather and I couldn't quite see it ourselves, but uh, to each their own! I've also been working on projects over at DeLeon Springs each Friday since not many Stetson students are left this summer. Removing invasive species of plants is important this time of year, but they haven't had the hands to get it done as fast as they would like. In the office, I've been brainstorming ideas to better prepare our incoming community organizers. In the past, we haven't been able to bond as a staff, and I hope to help change this for the upcoming year!

Week 7- A Week at Border Collie

The past week and a half has been a stressful one. Along with Anni and Josh, I stayed at Border Collie Rescue. Every morning I would wake up and begin rounds at 7. I would feed the dogs, clean their crates, wash the dogs, and let them out.

In between rounds, I would work on our inside projects. I re-painted much of the hallway, cleaned the kitchen, and went through a lot of the garbage around the property.

We also had the bonner camp kids come out for two days. The first days they learned how to train a dog and how our establishment works. The second day we had them clean the property and wash dogs. It was a great help.

The second and third rounds of the day, we spent playing with the dogs and training them. I had so much fun this week getting to really know all of the dogs.

Josh's SOS #7

Week 7

 It has been a while since my last blog, but as the summer comes to an end, so will my blogs. Is has been a memorable summer. An experience full of ups and downs, but nonetheless, an experience I won't for get. Working at the border collie rescue all summer made me realize the importance of Abby and I being there. We have seen the change we've made in many of these dogs, seeing get adopted and make people happy is a very rewarding feeling. Ending my service there this summer by boarding at my site and working with the animals for 10 straight days was a handful, but staying there that amount of time brought me closer to my site supervisors and the animals. All and all so thankful for bonner, for giving me this opportunity to become much closer with my site, as the summer draws to an end, I can now look forward to the fall, to continue my work here at the border collie rescue.

Peace out,

P.S. Raider is doing awesome. Learning tricks like a boss. 

Week 7

           This was a great week for me at Starke! I have finally figured out how to work with and manage our behaviorally difficult student. I have written about this student in previous posts, but he has many behavioral problems due to his rough past. He only wants to do what he wants to do and when he is asked to do something else or is corrected (behaviorally and academically) he overreacts by verbally and physically acting out. He also will get physical with other children if they do something that provokes him or something that he just does not like.

The teachers have struggled with managing his behavior and for many weeks I did not know how to even approach the situation. As I have gotten more comfortable in the classroom I have begun to step in more to help discipline students. I have noticed that this student tends to act out when there are big transitions in the day. These usually are when we get back to the classroom from breakfast, outside play, lunch, and during rest time. He has a hard time refocusing to do work or sit still and pay attention to the teachers during these times. He often will go off into another part of the classroom and wander or explore areas that the students are not supposed to go into (the teacher’s desk and around the computers). The teachers have gotten to the point in the program where they don’t know what to do anymore and are tired of having to deal with him not listening. I have tried to step in before and failed. He would not listen to me or would become more aggressive. However, I finally have figured out how to get through to him. I have to first give him a small consequence (losing 5 minutes of recess) and then if he still is not doing what he was asked to do he needs a big consequence (losing all of recess). Usually he still does not respond well so I tell him he has 1 minute to make his choice (losing recess or doing his work). He usually takes the full minute but then he will go do his work and stop disturbing the class. When he listened to me the first time it was a mini-victory that made my day. I felt like I was one step closer to being a real teacher.

This summer has taught me so much about myself, being a leader, and about teaching. I am so excited about student teaching in the fall now. I feel like I am able to manage a classroom and am ready for the challenges that teaching will bring. I can’t wait for school to start in just a few weeks!

Week 6

            This week the high school campers were at Starke on Monday and Tuesday.  Earlier in the summer Sarah-Michelle and I discussed possible projects with the vice principal for the campers to do while they spent their time at Starke. We ended up deciding on fixing up the grade-level garden boxes that the school has. Throughout the summer these little gardens became a little neglected and the weeds had grown very large very quickly. This resulted in some of the gardens looking like mini jungles. Our job was to weed all of the gardens and then plant flowers in the empty garden boxes.

            The first afternoon was really hot and we felt so bad for the campers out in the sun weeding. Unfortunately Sarah-Michelle and I were in school clothes and couldn’t really help them much so we tried to give them a lot time playing with the kids inside. However, on the second day we brought clothes to change into and were able to help the campers finish weeding the gardens. The gardens looked amazing compared to what they looked like before. After the gardens were all cleaned up we had some of the kids come out with us and plant the flowers. It was great to see the campers working one-on-one with the kids- they all had so much fun!

            This project was really important for the school and everyone at the school was so happy with the results! The garden gives the students something to care about and nurture. The students at Starke are growing up in very rough homes and don’t have a lot to care for. These gardens are a source of pride for the students. It will be great for the students to see that the gardens are still in good condition when they come back to school in a few weeks.

            The campers ended up really enjoying volunteering at Starke and working with the kids. We were a little nervous about how they would react to how the teachers interact with the students. At first it may seem like the teachers are really strict or even mean and yell at the kids all of the time. However, due to the students’ backgrounds, they thrive in a classroom of structure. They know that the teachers care about them when they are stricter. The students need to be in an environment like this. Of course the teachers also show affection towards the students and are nurturing towards them. This was a difficult concept for the campers to understand, but by the end of the week I think they were finally starting to understand.

            It was great being able to share my service site with the campers. I love talking about Starke and sharing stories so being able to show other people my site and give them the opportunity to interact with my students was a great opportunity!

The end of Siena

Well it appears that my time at Siena College with all the people I met there has come to an end. We ended our camp with the annual open house. People came to see what we had been doing with the teens and the mayor even came by. She declared it (insert name of our camp) day. So that was pretty cool. We had our last class which was basically just a picture sharing shindig. We used my laptop for the whole thing. The whole week was basically prep for the open house. Fatmata practiced her Garden tours and got them down pat. Everyone was rehearsing their stuff so they would be ready for the big day. Every morning that week I was working in the ACE office to get more hours.  Then I would go my site and do prep. On the day of I basically ran our vegetable stand. People bought quite  a few veggies  and even some bouquets. There was a bakesale happening too so I got some tasty baked goods. The day after the open house was the last day of the camp. We did a lot of debriefing. Fatmata and I took down signs and I finally got to see the movie that the film group made. As expected, it had nothing to do with the history of the site. But it was still good. Overall I'd say I had a good time in NY.

Week 6

So, before I talk about this week, there are some things that I didn’t mention last week that I would like to mention this week. About how organized the “creche” is: I was simply in awe! There is a group of volunteer doctors who work there. They kind of rotate by week. They also have various types of doctors, such as pediatricians, nutritionists, dentists, psychologists, etc.

Every morning, we had to do a “vistoria”, which is sort of like a check-up to check if the child had any bruises or any rashes, etc. This past week, one of the little girls had a long scratch one her stomach – turns out her sister had fought with her. Just a little reminder, she is two years old. 2.

Shifting gears, one thing that really impressed me was how the children are all under the same schedule. From 0 to 6, the whole “creche” does the same thing at the same time. For example, we put them to sleep at around 11:30~12. There are no children awake past that. In the whole creche. It’s really fascinating to see how they got that scheme going on.

One other thing that I thought was amazing was that the “creche” provides six meals to the children when they are having classes, and four when they are on vacations (which was this time of the year). So it’s breakfast, snack, lunch and dinner.

In the morning, after the snack, they are required to drink water, otherwise they are not allowed to play. I find this extremely good, because I saw how these children were struggling to drink the water. Like, as if it were a burden to drink the water. After lunch, they drink juice, and after dinner they drink water again. They can only get up after they finish the juice/water.

Also, one thing that caught my attention was the fact that Suzana and Nilda were the ones to teach many of these children how to use the toilet and ask to use it. As I mentioned before, some children come with their diapers from the night before, which is outrageous! Some of the children still had trouble in how use the bathroom, but they really learn fast!

The creche serves six “periferias”, which are poor neighborhoods. People who live or work there are allowed to leave their kids. The only problem is that there is a waiting list, since the place can only hold 180 children.

Since they don’t have any profit whatsoever, I did a lot of fundraising. I raised about R$ 300 (approximately $140), and I got what we needed the most, which was diapers. In the end of my work, I was able to donate  from 800-1000 diapers! It was awesome, since they tons of diapers a day, and they can only rely on donations!

(these were the cutest diapers I've ever seen lolol)

On the next post I will tell you guys about my last day and this really special kid I met, Guilherme J

Andrea

Final YMCA SOS Entry- Week 7

Hello Bonners! It's so hard to believe that this is my 7th and final blog post! I officially reached 280 on my 6th week, but I love the camp so much that I decided to continue going until I return to Stetson! This week was a little different than the usual schedule, because we had several guest speakers come in and talk to the kids! We had the local bus service for Pinellas county (PSTA) talk to the campers about bus safety and make them aware of the bus service provided for the county. On Tuesday, our second guest speaker was a Pinellas county dermatologist that spoke to the children about always using sunscreen when going outdoors and how to avoid skin diseases. Our third guest speaker was from the Tarpon Springs Aquarium and he brought in a large snake and even a baby crocodile! The kids really loved that one! For our Wednesday field trip, the kids got to go see a baseball team known as the Threshers play at Bright House Field in Clearwater! It was a hot one, but they had fun! Then on Friday we had a cowboy/cowgirl dress up day for the kids which they had a lot of fun with! After all of the main events, they continued with their usual schedule which consisted of swimming, crafts, and indoor/outdoor games. It makes me so sad that summer camp is coming to an end because these kids have really been a light in my life for almost 10 weeks and I can't believe how much they have looked up to me and considered me as a role model to them. Summer camp at the Y is definitely an experience I won't forget and there's no doubt that I will most likely make this my SOS for the summer of 2015!
Hope everyone else enjoyed their service sites as much as I did! See you all in a few weeks! :)

Karaoke!

Probably the highlight of this week was spending some quality time with my coworkers outside of the Boys and Girls Club!  Sarah, Scott and Lauren are all avid Glee fans and we have all been talking about the idea of having a Glee karaoke night for quite a while.  And this week it happened!  We all got together after work on Tuesday and went to Sarah’s house, ordered a pizza, watched an episode and then jammed for hours into the night!

This is just another aspect of my Summer of Service and my community engagement in general that I did not expect.  I anticipated becoming close with the kids and building relationships with them, but I never really thought about building friendships with the other counselors as well.  And those friendships are probably the strongest ones I have made throughout the entire summer!  I just get along with this staff really well, including our supervisor, and we all plan to do something together again next week before we finish up our term.

Also, Scott and I are going head-to-head against Lauren at the Talent Show next Friday.  It will be on my last afternoon at the Boys and Girls Club and we were going hardcore to seal this victory.  A bunch of the kids are participating too, and Tenicia even asked me to rap the Juicy J. section of Katy Perry’s Dark Horse.  Scott and I have written a very impressive 13 song medley composed of favorites amongst the kids.  The rules state that the kids will decide the winner amongst the participating adults, and the adults will decide the winner amongst the participating kids, so we have to appeal to our audience!  Other talent show acts include Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Problem, Roar, Let it Go, and some dancing.  I am very pumped.

Thankfully I’ve gotten the chance to move around from the arts and crafts station for a little while, being assigned to help run sports usually once or twice a week.  Although I love arts and crafts and the interest level in it has been growing rapidly, it just requires a lot of extra set-up and clean-up time which can be frustrating.  And I feel like the kids are continuing to test their limits this week, especially since a groundskeeper at the lake we go to has decided to “join the staff” and run activities as a counselor.  He has not training, no plans, no respect for the curriculum we have set aside, and just takes a couple kids to do his own activity that is sometimes dangerous.  He’s teaching 7-year-olds how to throw cards at each other and balance bats and chairs on their heads.  It’s ridiculous sometimes!

It’s absolutely all worthwhile though and I cannot get enough of some of these kids.  Ak’tavia, Camari, Cincear, Kit Kat, Donavan – they are all such amazing kids that really make me realize how much of an impact I want to have with the Community Partnership for Children when I get back to Florida.  Working with kids and spending a lot of time with them can yield some really incredible experiences and I appreciate it every day.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Summer camp is an absolute blast!  I’m going to figure out how to post pictures on here because I’ve got a ton and I feel like I have a much better understanding of other’s people’s Summers of Service because they post pictures.  Expect some pics.

I apologize in advance that this blog may be a little more negative than usual, but continue to keep in mind that I am still loving camp and these kids are sooo much fun and soooo cute.

Things are starting to change a little as everyone (kids and staff) get more comfortable.  The kids seem to be testing their limits a little bit more, especially those in my group, the Blue Barricudas.  Since they’re the youngest, I understand why they can be more difficult with listening and paying attention, but some are just proving to be troublesome children.  Trevon and James, in particular, are very content with disobeying counselor directions and will often run as far from where we want them to be as possible.  It’s manageable, but strenuous work to keep up with them and keep them safe.  On the older side, the kids in the Red Jaguar group are at a pre-teen age where they want to be independent and show how cool it is to not listen.  The oldest camper, Raymond, was announced to be a Counselor-in-Training on the first day, but has since lost that opportunity as he often disobeys and does not set a good example for the other children.

There have also been a few issues on the staff side.  One full-time staff member named Porsha has been clearly not pulling her weight around camp and has been causing some discourse amongst the employees.  She even left during a camp day to go take a nap instead of running an activity!  And although many of the staff complained to our supervisor about her lack of engagement, she never seemed to receive much repercussion.  However, at the end of this week, she was fired from the staff.  Although we all felt bad for her, it was a nice change as it unified the counselors again.  Another part-time staff member named Maurice was also let go this week, and it does make us a little worried about being understaffed, but we have Summer Youth Employment Workers and regular volunteers as well to help ease the loss.

On a lighter note, this week’s theme at camp was “International Week”!  To celebrate this, Thursday and Friday arts and crafts activities were dedicated to making a piñata filled with five bags of candy!  The kids loved making it and it was probably their favorite activity from the whole week!

Also, before I forget, Sarah and I stayed behind from going up to the camp on Wednesday of this week to work on a Boys and Girls Club Survival Guide of useful information for next year’s Summer Service Scholars.  It was sad to lose a day at the camp, but it was a nice change of pace.  Only 2 weeks left!

Siena week 8

So this week was a little less than ideal. On Monday, one of our teens apparently threw such a hissy fit that the site supervisor allowed him to switch to the dance focus group half way through the camp. This made no sense to us since he has built up quite a knowledge base of garden information and would have to learn in a few days the dance that the other group has been working on for weeks. So now we are down to working with one teen. To make things even more spectacular (feel the sarcasm) our one remaining teen informed us that she can't be there on the day of the open house. So we get to deal with that. That day we also got the bright idea to take a field trip the next day. We would take our teen to see the two other major community gardens in the area as well as the state museum. She called home to get permission and everything was set. After we made all the plans and got all the permissions, we realized that Tony Opalka was coming to speak the next day. So the next day we picked up Fatmata at her house and went on our merry way. Our first stop was Radix, a community garden with plants, bees, chickens, pigeons, ducks, rabbits and fish. We didn't get to see all of those things ( I wanted to see the bees) but it was still a cool thing to see. After that we had some time to kill before our tour of the other community garden that we planned to tour so we went to the NY state museum. It was quite cool but parking was the worst. . They had all kinds of exhibits that created like a timeline of New York History. They had stuff on everything from Native American Tribes and wildlife all the way up through 9/11/01 with culture, industry and some entertainment throughout the years. They even had a Sesame Street reel going in one exhibit. Our teen saw a fake fire in the replica Native American house and thought it was real. I bet the museum people would have been so proud of their fake fire making skills if they had heard that. We were going to ride the old fashioned Carousel but we had to leave before the next ride. So we went to the other garden and did our tour there. The girl who gave us the tour was another Summer Service Scholar who I only ever see in class. In class she always looks like she has given up on the world so I was pleasantly surprised when she gave us a very thorough and knowledgeable tour of the gardens that was far more extensive than the one we got when we went the first time. After that tour we took Fatmata home early and it was a good day.   

So Wednesday came around and we planned to make pressed flower book marks but outdoor weather conditions were being uncooperative so we decided that we would take Fatmata to Siena the next day to work indoors on that project. Instead we decided to paint our garden stand. We painted it red and white and wrote on the front of it to advertise our produce. I tried to wash the brushes in our tiny foot pump sink but just ended up getting red paint all over the place. The brushes still got thrown away so that was a little frustrating. Also later I would scrub the paint off the walls because I made the mess and I felt like I should. Since we painted the stand that day we didn't sell vegetables. 

On Thursday we made a pit stop at the ACE Office before we went to our site. They were making pizzas and said something about basil. We were like "you know who has SO MUCH BASIL? Us. So when we went to our site to get Fatmata and the flowers that we had left under a pile of bricks overnight, we picked some basil and brought it back to the ACE people. We also introduced them to Fatmata. After that we gave Fatmata a short driving tour of Siena and then went to the library and worked on making bookmarks for the rest of the day. We made quite a few then had to race back to our site for the end of the day debrief. Another interesting day. 

On the last day of the week, we were back at the site doing normal stuff. Since it was a Friday we set up the vegetable stand. At this point we were selling bouquets as well as produce. A young neighborhood kid, probably around 15 or 16, came by on his bike and we told him about our products. To our surprise he bought a bouquet of flowers. We asked him who they were for and he said they were for his mother. Fatmata continued to practice her plant knowledge and garden tour giving skills. It was one of our best weeks by far. 

And sooooo yeah... Bye.