SoS Week 1 - Andrea Bruere

          It feel so good to be back here in Richmond, Virginia. This is where my (new-life) journey began. It is gratifying to be able to now help the person who has helped me the most to achieve many of my goals: my local coordinator, Becky Bell. If it wasn't for her, I would never have studied in the US; I would never have fallen into my host family (who are now my second family), nor would I be at Stetson (let's be honest, she's awesome).
        Since I hadn't been in Virginia for quite a long time, I really wanted to come here for my Summer of Service, because I knew I would be able to help lots of people! I thought about Becky and she said she would love to have me working for her, so that worked out great! I was a little apprehensive at first, because I knew I was going to help her with office work and placing children into their homes, but I didn't know she would trust me so much to actually do (somewhat) what she does.
       So, a local coordinator (she is in a higher position now, but she continues as a local coordinator) is someone who choses the students they want to have in their area (they see our profiles on the ciee website and then choose by grade, gender, nationally, etc...), then, they have to find a home for these students - which wow! it is incredibly hard -, and finally, oversees the students to make sure they have a smooth exchange experience. On my first day, we met and she gave me a breakdown of what she needed me to do:

- I needed to reach schools in 15 counties (each county has approximately 30 schools (elementary, middle and high).
- In order for me to contact these schools, I had to be able to get emails from every single person in the school's staff (which took a long time)
- After getting the emails, I would have to write a letter about my experience and send it out
- I would also have to work with managing some files, facebook and instagram accounts for marketing and trying to find families through social media.

     My first week has so far been amazing. A lot of work. Especially because pretty much the work I've been doing is on the computer. Though, I got to volunteer with her by doing some activities with children, and also tutoring. One of the things that you must do as an exchange student is community service, which worked great for me, since I told Becky I would also want to do some "hands on" activities while I'm here. Though, I like sending out letters because people get to see my side of the story and maybe if they answer me wanting to host, they will say something good about it:) I think that the most gratifying thing is that I see how much work Becky puts into this, and how good she is at what she does. I sure didn't think it was an easy job, but oh boy... Let's see what next week will show me.
   
Hope you all are having a great first week! (actually this is my last week here at this particular site, but since the blog wasn't working... tehehehe)