Volunteering at the Hispanic Center Food Bank

After such an exciting day Friday it was hard to believe that I still had a full day of things to do ahead of me. Saturday morning marked my first weekly meeting with my accountability partner for Leader In Me training. We met at a local breakfast spot, Johnny’s Bagels, and discussed habit 1: Be Proactive over bagels and coffee. We talked about how we lived the habit over the past week and planned on how we would use habit 2: Being With the End in Mind in the upcoming week. Once we parted ways I had time to kill before I had to report for my volunteer duty at the Hispanic Center, so I saw the sights on Main Street and visited some of the adorable shops! After buying some Tchotchkes it was time to head over to the Hispanic Center to help with their food bank.

When I got there people were already lining the street, set up with their lawn chairs and umbrellas. The experience was more fun than I ever thought it would be! Not only did I get to practice my Spanish (which I’m currently learning for the first time), but I got to know some of the people in the community. It was really great to be able to help people feed their families, but the food bank is small and the rations are strict. However, people were very understanding of our limits, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to deny foods that they knew they wouldn’t eat so other people could have them.

As fulfilling as some of the experience was, it was also heartbreaking. In order to qualify to use the food bank patrons have to bring social security cards for every member of their family every time they come. Unfortunately some people forgot some of the social security cards so for example even though they had come before and had a documented family of 6, they could only get the rations for a family of 3. I don’t know about you but I don’t know where my social security card is, and I don’t know about the rest of my family. For families living in poverty the paperwork and documentation needed is endless. It is practically a full-time job to attain the assistance you qualify for, on top of everything else going on in your life. We want reform!

It was a very eventful and eye-opening weekend, but I was happy to do absolutely nothing on Sunday and get ready for my first week out of training!

Field Trip to the Camden Aquarium

Usually I don’t do much of anything on the weekends, and I like it that way, but this weekend was different.

It started on Friday when we VISTAs were given the choice to chaperone a summer school field trip to the Camden Aquarium in New Jersey or go into the office. Obviously we chose to be chaperones so we arrived at the school early Friday morning to embark on the hour and a half ride to the aquarium. The ride was filled with beautiful scenery like fields and farms and all of the cool things when we rode through Philly so the kids were pretty entertained. In fact, they were almost as entertained with the scenery as they were with my freckles, or polka-dots as they liked to call them.

Finally we arrived at the aquarium and the kids could barely contain their excitement! I was lucky enough to be put with the going-into-first-graders and going-into-fifth-graders, an interesting mix. The school they are from has an 80% poverty rate, measured by the percentage of students who receive free or reduced lunch, so it was nice for the kids to get out of the city and have a new experience! They loved everything! The Camden Aquarium is really cool and very tailored to children. Their favorite part, hands down, was the stingray touch-tank. We could barely get them out of there after half an hour!

While it was a really great trip, lunchtime was a snap back to reality. The school provided pre-packed lunches were an eye-opener. The no-refrigeration necessary packages contained chocolate “milk”, beef and cheese sticks, a bag of chips, and a dessert item. Our kids deserve better than this. We know children living in poverty have very limited access to fresh produce and healthy foods in general, but our government approves these lunches? It’s just not right.

All in all it was a great trip and most of the kids napped on the bus ride back to school. Once we got back to the house we had a little bit of time to get ready before heading to one of the Community School Coordinators’ house. She was kind enough to invite all of the VISTAs over for dinner, and she conveniently lives right around the corner from us! We got to meet her daughters, ages 2 and 3, get to know her better, eat delicious Latin American cuisine, and learn more about our neighborhood. It was a great way to end a great day!

The Leader In Me

Have you ever heard of a “Leader in Me” school? Well, if your answer is no I hadn’t either up until a few weeks ago. If your answer is yes, then I’m impressed and I’m hoping one is empowering children in a neighborhood near you!

So, for those of you who haven’t heard of these amazing schools, it’s basically a program where students are taught Franklin Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People throughout all of their classes (even math!). The program was first started at A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina by an amazing school principal. Not only do the students learn great leadership skills, these skills impact their entire school experience and they feel more connected, more confident, and enjoy school, which leads to better academic achievements and lower dropout rates down the line.

It’s a really great program, and I was lucky enough to participate in a 3 day “Leader In Me” training with the teachers and staff of one of my school sites. During these 3 days not only did we learn how to teach the 7 principles to children, but we learned about how to live them ourselves. How can we expect students to practice these skills if our teachers and staff aren’t modeling them?

For the training we were very fortunate to get to know Suzanne Hays, our amazing Franklin Covey facilitator and former educator. She brought valuable insights to our discussions and kept us entertained and engaged throughout the three days.

At the end of the 3 days we were given homework (how appropriate) to live each habit for 1 week until we’re done (i.e. 7 weeks) and we have “accountability partners” to meet with at the end of each week to make sure we’re staying on track.

All in all it was a really great experience, and I highly recommend that if you’re interested in the Leader in Me for a school in your neighborhood that you bring it to the attention of your school leadership or PTA. You never know what can happen!

Does this mean I'm famous?

Look at this publicity! The United Way PR team wrote a lovely article about us :)

So we officially started our service on my birthday (proof that I'm officially an adult) and it was pretty darn great! Everyone at the United Way is amazingly friendly and we've been learning about all of the great things they help make happen in the Valley. Since I'm working for the Community School program so I fall under the education category, but the UWGLV focuses on three main areas: education, basic needs, and helping keep older adults independent. It is inspirational and humbling to work with all of the amazing and passionate people who are making positive systems change and improving the quality of so many lives.

VISTA Training: Day 4

By the 4^th day of training I was utterly exhausted, both mentally and physically. Between all of the work we did and the information crammed into our brains and waking up early I was spent. Luckily our last day was a half-day so it went pretty fast and by 1:30pm we were on our way home. However, on this day we learned about all of the amazing resources we have from the corporation, the VISTA office, and from a bunch of other sources like blogs and websites. We learned how to use the resources for all they’re worth and how to develop other resources.

After all of the vigorous mental work we did we were awarded a certificate for completing the PSO and got ready to be sworn in. We take the same oath as the President and members of the military, as well as our own VISTA oath.

Though I doubt they read this blog, I would sincerely like to thank Kim Judy and the PSO staff for answering all of our questions and making everything run so smoothly. I would also like to thank Cathy Lins for being an excellent facilitator for our group. Last but not least I’d like to give a shout out to group Yellow (or as we like to call it, the best group)

Yea, I know you're all jealous of our sweet polo shirts.

VISTA Training: Day 3

Training is exhausting, but we persevered and learned a lot more on Day 3. Once again starting bright and early at 7am we kicked off the day discussing our VISTA Assignment Descriptions, or VADs. Each position has a different VAD tailored to fit the VISTAs individual talents in relation to the project goals. Some people had their work cut out for them to navigate 4 or 5 page VADs, but thankfully I only had 2 pages. The VADs are organized by the assignment objectives and the specific member activities that contribute to each objective. Many of our VADs had at least one component of capacity building to increase the efficiency of our organizations, and other goals revolving around your specific position.

This activity was one of the more challenging things we did, but was definitely a crucial part of training. I came away from this session with a clearer idea of what I needed to do and some creative methods of going about it.

This day of training also incorporated some very important exercises on communication styles and problem solving, but I won’t go into detail too much about that- it’s a training essential!

One of the most fun activities was about volunteer mobilization, and how to tailor your approach to different groups of people. We mainly focused on the generational differences of volunteers and what their values are and how to appeal to and work with/manage different groups. Analyzing different groups was fun and a lot of my peers were surprised to find them in the millennial group rather than generation X, however I wasn’t surprised due to a former advisor who wouldn’t let me forget it! This session ended in a discussion of the different resources provided by the Corporation of National Service, or as it is commonly referred to as “the corporation” (which kind of creeps me out...but ok). 

All in all it was an informative, but mentally exhausting, day. As I mentioned before, training was made much easier and more fun by all of the amazing people I got to meet and work with!