Let's Get to Work!

On Sunday night, I learned which students would be in my work crew for the week along and which work sites we would get to visit. 

My work crew was assigned to work the same two places every day.

(Each group was named after BBQ restaurants. We didn't go to Rosedale BBQ, but I bet it is yummy!)

Morning Worksite: The Upper Room

What Is It?: The Upper Room is an organization that provides out-of-school education programs to low income families in urban Kansas City. In the summer, reading programs are offered all over the city. Less than half of the students in Kansas City graduation from high school. This free program helps students catch up and become ready for their next year in school. Many of our work groups visited an Upper Room location this week. 
What Did You Do?: We assisted the teachers by listening to students read, helping them complete worksheets, and playing with them/talking to them during the break time. 
Reflection: Based on my experiences, this sort of volunteering always has a slow start. On the first day, my work group tried to figure out what there role was depending on the classroom they were in. We all had rough moments at the site in terms of feeling needed and understanding our role, but by the end the Upper Room kids loved our group and relationships were forming! Our group was exposed to life very different from our own. And they realized that they were making a difference in the lives of these young readers. Our students were excited to share when a reader they worked with did well on their comprehension tests. Seeing their pride warmed my heart. What great work these high schoolers achieved! 

I guess I've taking the ability to read and learning to read for granted my whole life. I always remember having books in my room and my parents reading to me before bed. (Thanks mom and dad!) I never struggled with it in school and my siblings are great readers too. I hope that our time at the Upper Room helped the youth start to gain confidence in reading. I hope they improve their reading ability this summer. I hope they go on to graduate high school and follow their dreams.

Afternoon Worksite: Della Lamb

What Is It?: Della Lamb is an organization and Charter School that provides services to the Kansas City immigrant population. (I can't even describe all they do here. Check out their website. Seriously.)
What Did You Do?: 
       Monday: Worked in the school building moving things - they are in the midst of a renovation 
       Tuesday and Wednesday: Worked with kids at the day care and prepped/painted three apartments for immigrant families moving in on Friday

Painting break!

       Thursday: Sorted donations and organized the donation room

Moving Boxes

Sorting!

My work crew! Yay Rosedale!

Finished product! (FYI There was no space to walk in before!)

Reflection: Most of the work we did at Della Lamb was behind the scenes, but we all learned so much about Della Lamb (named after the women that started it) and their services. I did not expect to serve the immigrant/refugee population of Kansas City mostly because I didn't know they had much of a immigrant/refugee population. 

Since I returned from the trip, I've been thinking what it would be like to be a refugee in the U.S. I wouldn't understand the language. Or know how to get a job or sign my child up for school or what foods were at the grocery store. I wouldn't have a social security number or know how to drive a car. 

Learning about this vulnerable population last week has sparked my interest about it in my community. Once I catch up on sleep, I plan on doing some serious research!


I want to hear from you! What sort of nonprofits have you served on mission trips? What has been your favorite? Has your service ever inspired you to serve at home? I seem to learn more about where I served a bit after the trip is over. Has the same happened to you? 

A Look-A-Like Boutique Philanthropy

So, (semi-)long story short: My AmeriCorps term ended with the American Red Cross and now I'm serving my second term in AmeriCorps at Big Brothers Big Sisters.
I've only been in this new role for about a month and just had my first training session yesterday. Part of our training was a service project. AmeriCorps has a requirement where members must fulfill certain trainings as well as complete four service projects throughout our year of service that are different from our day to day role. One of the other AC members at BBBS had volunteered at our local Dress for Success so we thought that would be a fun thing to do during our afternoon.

After (a wonderful baked potato bar) lunch, we headed out for our project. After a short walk, we arrived at Dress for Success. The mission of Dress for Success is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life. They do this by giving women a suit for interviews as well as more clothes after they have secured a job and by offering classes to help them develop their careers. It is a fairly new organization having only existed since 1997 nationally and only serving my community for about a year (it had been in the planning process for about a year before that!). When a women is referred to the agency (by housing authorities or domestic violence caseworkers etc) she is treated to a personal shopping experience where trained volunteers pick out items just for her; help her learn what size she needs and what fits her best. Dress for Success also provides make-up, shoes, jewelry, and handbags (as long as they are available). Most of the items they give away are donated by individuals, but they have corporate sponsors too. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture!
As our volunteer shift started, we got a tour and explanation of all the work Dress for Success does. Our job was to put spring/summer items into storage bins and replenish the racks with fall/winter items. While we were hard at work (in the cutest boutique-looking non-profit I've ever seen btw), a women came in for an appointment. She had been in another day and had found a suit for an interview. She got the job and was back to get a week's worth of separates to get her through until her first pay check. She had two dedicated and understanding volunteers working hard to find items that were her taste and size.

This was a very neat experience. I had never volunteered in an organization with a mission even close to this. Their focus is to empower women and help them to achieve their goals. I felt so good about the work we did even though we didn't even have direct contact with an individual receiving aid. I hope to volunteer here again!

Kids Against Hunger

This morning, (before church!), I volunteered with Kids Against Hunger as a part of my church's Hunger Awareness Weekend. Church hosted a garden swap, food drive, and Kids Against Hunger this morning. Having previously participated in Kids Against Hunger events at church and Valparaiso University, I signed up right away! Kids Against Hunger is a meal packing organization that uses volunteers and donations to pack meals to deliver to hungry youth all over the world. I, in my heels and hairnet (sorry, no picture), was working on the weight checking station - the packages have to be weighed to make sure they are consistent and meet the dietary information located on the packages.
Before 9am, I helped package about 140 6-serving meal packages! Definitely, a project I will try again!

Chicago Mission Trip - Friday

Friday:
Our last day in Chicago! I went with a different color group that day due to the driving home plan. We traveled uptown to Cornerstone Community Outreach, a huge homeless shelter, with meal site and clothing "free-store". To start our morning at CCO, we had a little orientation to the shelter and learned about homelessness in Chicago. Our speaker was very interesting and I learned some new things from her talk - I could have listened longer, but we all wanted to get to work! Part of the group went to the kitchen area to help prepare lunch for the shelter residents (they can hold about 500 men, women, and children, but lunch was not that full because people go places during the day) and the other part went to the clothing "free-store". I wish I'd taken a picture of the store, it was huge and full of clothes for women, children, and men. Our job was to hang up some clothes that I had already been sorted and then place them in the right section. After emptying two huge bins, it was time for lunch. We went across the street to the meal site building and ate lunch with the residents. I sat by some young students: one studying to be a nurse and the other a high school student with big dreams. After lunch it was time to start back on our trip home. (I survived driving (a mini-van with 6 kids!) through the city!) Once back at church we were welcomed by parents, siblings, and other church members. We shared bits of our week with them as we enjoyed pizza. Overall, I really enjoyed the trip - it was bumpy at times, but I feel so good about the work that we accomplished in Chicago. I'd definitely go again.

Chicago Mission Trip Tues/Wed/Thur

Tuesday - Back at Ashburn for the day! When we arrived in the morning our high schoolers were surprised by an excited group of young people. The Ashburn kids ran up to us shouting greetings and giving hugs! I don't think our group expected the Ashburn kids to be as excited as they were - I think our group started to realize that they were becoming friends to the youth we were working with.
We got to walk to a library with the kids that day and because their normal library speaker had fallen through, we got to lead some songs and a game with the kids. Later that day the high schoolers lead more games at a park nearby!

Tuesday night was downtown night! We separated into groups and explored different areas of the city. I went to The Cheesecake Factory and shopping on Michigan Ave (with a group of youth and a few other leaders)! We also got an assignment relating to Ten Dollars.

Wednesday - Day 3 at Ashburn! Before camp, we visited Walmart to purchase some craft supplies for our high schoolers to lead in our programmable time in the afternoon. That morning we traveled to a nearby swimming pool and then led our craft projects in the afternoon!

Wednesday night was hang out time in University of Chicago's Quad! Followed by some alone time with God and a thank you circle.

Thursday - The only day I remembered to take pictures! Farmer's Market Day with Ashburn! Then in the afternoon, we led crafts and games. We also got to try some Asian food with our young friends! They were hilarious as they analyzed their food. They would make a wonderful food critic show! (Many of the kids had told us stories of the bland African dishes of the week before)

Discussing chocolate bagels

Thursday night was a trip to Lake Michigan to enjoy each others company on the beach. We also enjoyed a BBQ for dinner and foot washing and reflection to wrap up the night.

Chicago Mission Trip Sunday and Monday

'The Spirt of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' - Luke 4:18-19

Sunday - The start of our Chicago Mission Trip. We all met in the church parking lot in the afternoon to load cars and start our journey. The high schoolers were all giving a playing card that corresponded to a vehicle so once that was revealed we got on our way to Chicago!
After a dinner break during our trip, we made it to Augustana Lutheran Church (the male housing site and where we would eat/cook most of our meals). We unloaded all of our gear and moved into our homes for the next few days. I stayed in a University of Chicago dorm (with two other adult leaders and the upper-classmen girls). (The other girls and female adult leaders stayed at a Youth Center.) Then, we met for our club (songs, announcements, message etc) and found out our color groups (the group that we would be serving with all week).

Yes, my mission trip housing was nicer than my college dorm room (well, it was a college dorm)

Monday - Our first work day! Right after breakfast, the Red Team (Yay Emergency Buttons!) headed to Ashburn Lutheran School and Church to help with their summer program. We were not totally sure what our role would be as we traveled but we brought our ideas and flexibility. When we arrived we learned that we would mostly be acting as a friend to the kids (We would have some time later in the week to lead activities too). We got to break apart and go with different age groups as they had their discovery time (this week's theme was Asia) then we played games outside. After lunch with the summer camp kids, we headed off to meet other color groups at Feed My Starving Children in Aurora, IL.
FMSC is a meal-packaging site and probably my favorite experience of the week. The meals are packaged my volunteers (and the money to buy supplies is collected from donors) and then they are sent to one of about 70 countries. In our 2 hour session, we heard an opening presentation with a little video, got instructions, packaged the meals, and then had a prayer and closing. In our 2 hours, we (I think there were about 90 volunteers) packaged meals for 72 kids for a whole year! 121 boxes of meals! I've done similar projects to this before and every time, I'm blown away by how much impact can be made in such a short amount of time! The neatest part of our time at FMSC was that there were some Spanish-only speaking volunteers in our session. While we were getting oriented and hearing directions everything was spoken in English and then Spanish (which got a bit frustrating for people who were already familiar with the process), but at the end of our packing time the roles were reversed. A Spanish speaking women prayed and we had to get in translated into English. I had never been in a situation where I had to wait to understand. I felt guilty for being impatient earlier in our time at FMSC. Not speaking the common language must get frustrating. I also enjoyed that despite not being able to communicate well with words, we worked together toward the same goal! About 90 people with different backgrounds came together to help others in an impactful and life saving way! Whoa

That night we had some fun time at Portillo's Hotdogs (Italian beef sandwich and cheese fries! yum!!) and Xtreme Trampoline (so fun and a great workout!!) before a much needed good night's sleep.

Chicago 2012 Mission Trip

On Sunday, I will be leaving for my (second annual) Chicago service trip! This year, I will be going as an adult leader with a church trip for high schoolers. Each summer, my church provides a mission trip opportunity for high schoolers and this year the trip is to Chicago. We will be broken into teams with each team going to different locations to complete service projects all over the city! (A very similar theme to my trip last year)

Trip Details:

• 6 Days
• 55 (!) High School Youth
• 14 Adult Leaders
• 3 Housing Locations
• 8(I think) Service Project Sites
• ??? Hours of Service

So, it is a lot bigger than my trip to Chicago last summer (which starting my blogging). I've already started to pack and can't wait till we all meet on Sunday to begin our trip!

Almost packed!

Service Saturdays

Looking back, April was my unofficial volunteer-every-Saturday month!
Here is a summary of what I got to do:

April 7th - King's Harvest with my Grandma. My Grandma volunteers here every single Saturday! This Saturday I went along to help in the clothing area of this food/clothing site and shelter. We worked in the hygiene room so I got to hand out toiletries, underwear/socks, blankets/towels/wash clothes, and reading glasses. I had been to King's Harvest before with one of my Red Cross Clubs, but they had done a lot of work since October. The whole place was more organized (yay!). There were not many volunteers that day so I was glad that I came. It was amazing that we were busy the entire morning! Seeing people in need really opens your eyes. (Later that weekend, I went through my closet to collect things that should be donated).

April 14th - We celebrated Global Youth Service Day a bit early in the Quad Cities with a clean-up and tree/shrub planting at Nahant Marsh. Prior to the event, we (local AmeriCorps members and myself) had a few meetings and I worked with the marketing/PR committee. We created a press release for the event and posted the event on various community calendars. The day of the event came quickly and we had great volunteer turn-out! We had approx 100 volunteers who collected 42 bags of trash plus miscellaneous items that did not fit into trash bags, removed over 1.5 acres of invasive species, and planted 200 trees! During the work day, I helped collect lots of trash and then pulled garlic mustard (apparently, you can eat it, but it is invasive). I helped to fill lots of trash bags! (I love work where you can see the progress) I think the project made a huge difference for Nahant Marsh and the youth volunteers seemed to really enjoy themselves! Global Youth Service Day in the QC was a success! GYSD Report

April 21st - Camp Shalom work weekend was this Saturday. All board members are encouraged to participate and I had never been able to go before so I thought I would check it out. I got to help with random tasks around the new lodge! The neatest part about this day was seeing all of these people who care about camp working together. Some of the volunteers had never been to camp before but came because of a friend who loves camp recruited them. As a camper (and even staff), you never really think about/see what goes on before the summer starts so camp is ready for you!

April 27th-28th - 8th Grade Confirmation Retreat -- I got to play games do camp/church things as well as lead my own session which was about experiencing God through service. Our service project at camp was mulching trails. It was a job that I had done many times before and I got to do the project with 8th graders! Mulching is very hard work and not something that I loved while a camphand. Most of the youth seemed to enjoy themselves! We all agreed that it was hard work, but enjoyed seeing our progress and the social/teambuilding aspect of service.

I Speak for the Trees

(I have not seen the new movie version of The Lorax, but the book and the original movie are awesome and so I decided that my tree-themed-project-post needed quotes from this great story)

The Lorax: I speak for the trees! Let them grow! Let them grow!

[machines clear the landscape of stumps and grass]

The Lorax: But nobody listens too much, don't you know.

This morning, I volunteered for the Million Trees Project with some fellow AmeriCorps members (Happy AmeriCorps Week!). The Million Trees Project was new to me this year. It is a project done by Living Lands and Waters (and other groups do it too as I learned from my google search). The project took place at a local expo center. There we made a tree prep assembly line. I got to be a newspaper wrapper so I took the tree sapling and wrapped the roots in newspaper, then they got dunked in water and put into small bags and finally counted and separated into larger bags. The trees will go to local youth, businesses, and other projects to be planted all over my community.

I have not done a lot of environmental projects, but I really enjoyed this one! The time went by quickly and the work was pretty simple. Unfortunately, I don't get to see those trees being planted. I may try to go back again this week and prep some more trees!

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better. It's not."

Picture Source

Thanks to http://www.imdb.com/ for confirming the quotes

2011 Reflection and 2012 Goals

2011 went by so quickly! My 7 year old brother agreed with me the other day when I drove him to school, "This year went by so fast! You know how some times time goes by so slowly like a minute seems to take an hour, but this year was fast. Like a minute was a second, and an hour was a minute, and a day was an hour." (It was so funny! He just kept going on about it with his crazy logic) I want to reflect on all the awesome service-y things I got to do this year!

2011 Reflection

• Participated in Relay for Life at Valparaiso University
• Completed about 12 hours of philanthropy work through my sorority
• Served as a volunteer cook at Camp Shalom
• Worked in my church's community garden
• Traveled to Chicago through Camp Shalom on a service trip
• Traveled to NYC through Camp Shalom on a service trip
• Went on a mission trip to Joplin, MO with some amazing people including my Grandma
• Started my AmeriCorps term at the American Red Cross
• Started my year of teaching 3rd grade Sunday School
• Worked two college fairs through VAN
• Made cookies with church women for local food programs
• Volunteered for Quad City Arts Festival of Trees
• Completed various service projects with the Red Cross Clubs that I work with (Holiday Cards for Heroes; volunteering at King's Harvest and the Luther Manor Genage Cafe; and having the Holiday party for elementary school students)

2012 Service Goals

• Go on another mission trip
• Donate blood
• Complete more service projects with my Red Cross Clubs (Another trip to King's Harvest, helping them teach hand-washing at elementary schools/day cares...)
• Finish my AmeriCorps term :(
• Help decorate the White House for Christmas (maybe my interior design major sister will come too) (I'm still figuring out how to sign up - but I'll find it eventually)
• Finish my year with my 3rd grade Sunday school class (and maybe sign-up again depending on where I get a job)
• Volunteer in my church's garden (and get a book about gardening from the library so I can be a better help)
• Run a race for a philanthropic organization
• Volunteer for at least one new-to-me organization
• Be a virtual volunteer
• Volunteer for at least 40 hours (and keep track of my hours so I know if I've made the goal)
• Blog about all of these adventures!

Hopefully, I will complete many (if not all) of these goals, I guess we will see this time next year! Happy New Year!

Preparing for the Nonprofit Summit

This week, I got to teach my first Adult CPR/AED/First Aid class! It still part of my instructor training so I did not set the class up nor was it a youth class. It was nice to use what I had learned the week before to teach the class, but odd to teach adults. That was very new to me. I'm excited to use this learning experience when teaching this class to youth. I'm also excited that this (once meaningless) listing in my brochure is actually possible now! Tomorrow, I decided to work even though the office is closed (well, I realized that today...) - I'm going to teach Scrubby Bear Hand Washing to all of the kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade classes at an elementary school! I have not taught many classes to such big groups - it is a lot different than one classroom at a time. Then this weekend, I have a Girl Scout event. We are helping them to earn their first aid patch. I'm looking forward to having some big groups this weekend!

Next week, I'm traveling to the Iowa Nonprofit Summit! It is part of my AmeriCorps training and I am really looking forward to it! It is a two day event with two keynote speakers, exhibit tables, many breakout sessions, an AmeriCorps social, and a service project to benefit the Blank Children's Hospital. There are a lot of opportunities for those involved with AmeriCorps at the Summit, but nonprofit people all over Iowa are invited and able to participate too. I'm super excited for the sessions that I signed up for, but it was a hard choice! There are so many interested topics offered at the event! Some of my sessions are fulfilling the training requirements for my AmeriCorps Program and others I just thought I would enjoy! Some of the sessions that I'm super excited for are: Developing Quality Volunteer Opportunities, Speaking the Language: Using Social Media for Volunteer Engagement; Poverty Simulation; and Reflecting and Demonstrating Success in your Service-Learning Projects. I'm excited to meet some other people involved in the non-profit industry (yay networking!) as well as meet some other people in my AmeriCorps program! If this event turns out to be half as great as I'm thinking it will be, I will want to find a way to attend next year as well.

Also Katy Perry likes the Red Cross.

Today, I added another job to the "things I might want to be when I grow up" list. I would love to do something with youth and service learning. Like helping youth (probably high school/college students) find and coordinate volunteer opportunities (maybe to fulfill a requirement by the educational institution) as well as work with them on the projects. I would want to hear their thoughts about service and then hear their feedback about their work. I'm not exactly sure what this job would be called (we had something like it at my high school and college), but I'm going to find something like it! I mean I added it in pen to my list so it is pretty serious...

Working on the Weekend

My work schedule is pretty flexible and variable so sometimes I work on the weekends. This morning, one of my high school Red Cross Clubs decided to volunteer at a local meal/clothing site, King's Harvest. The whole project started with another student at the high school who wanted to get multiple student organizations involved with this site. She sent an email explaining the volunteer opportunity while encouraging student organizations to volunteer. With very little encouragement from me or the club's advisor, the club members expressed that they wanted to volunteer.

After some confusion about what vehicle I could take at the Red Cross (the one I had signed up for was not there when I arrived at the office), we met at the school and headed over to King's Harvest. We thought we would be serving breakfast, but because they didn't need us there we got sent downstairs to the clothing area (where my grandma volunteers every Saturday morning! It is also where my family donates our old clothes and large shopping bags). It was not where we expected to be, but the kids adapted well and went with the flow wonderfully. It was really neat work - I hadn't volunteered in this type of location before.

People in need can come to King's Harvest on Saturday mornings to take clothing items they may need. There is a limit to the number of items they can take in one day. Today, there were also blankets and they serve about 200-300 (i think that is what the leader said) people every week! Since my grandma is a regular volunteer, I had heard about it, but I didn't know exactly what went on. It was hectic. There were so many people who visited, but it was still organized in some odd way. I was a cashier/bagger with two of the club members and some high schoolers from another group. We bagged their items as well as helped them get personal items and toiletries. (Now I understand why my grandma always wanted any big shopping bags we got - it is hard to put a blanket or comforter in a small grocery bag)

The visitors were so grateful many saying thank you to all of us in the "checkout" line.
Others barely said a word.
Some talked about others that were too embarrassed to come here.
Some had specific wants or needs they were trying to fulfill. One boy desperately asked for a back pack for his school books - we were out of back packs, but a duffel bag fulfilled his need.
A few mentioned being excited about finding things they could wear to their new job.
Most of them were very positive. After asking how he was, one man replied, "I can't complain". That was pretty eye opening. I complain that I have to eat pb&j most days for lunch and here this man had to visit a meal site/clothing site to fulfill basic needs and he didn't have anything to complain about.
Many talked about how helpful this was to them and how excited they were to have a good pair of socks, one new pair of underwear, and a new big blanket or coat. I feel pretty awful for complaining all through jr. high about "not having anything to wear" when these people have nothing or very little and they are happy to just get 10 items.

This work made me feel great because of the thankful attitude from most of our customers, but I was also lucky to hear from my high school club members what they thought of the experience. To most of them, it was something new. They had gotten up early on a Saturday and helped a lot of people. They found the work eye-opening and rewarding. I love seeing youth realize how great volunteering feels when completed. They all had positive things to say about their experiences and expressed that they would love to go back another Saturday for more service work!