In high school there was a variety of ways to get involved and help out with the Life Skills students (special education students), with clubs, within the community, etc. I was in DECA which is an international business club focused on sales and marketing. Unlike other schools 50% of our time and energy went into doing programs for and helping out the school and community. Looking back the activities I was a part of would definitly be considered service learning where at the time that was the last thing on anyones mind. We did things from sports captains cleaning up the campus, assemblies on holidays, programs on anti-drugs and anti-drinking and driving, we had a tv station, and many other things that helped the community and our high school of 3,000 people; while it also taught us important lessons.

The variety of activities/service learning projects and programs I was a part of in high school I believe have taught me the impact I can make and the many things I can accomplish which will come in handy during this quarter of service learning.

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Entry Part II – I remembered writing an entry but when looking it at all my blogs I didn’t have one for service learning so I wrote another and then magically the first one decided to reappear so here are both: (first above and second below)

I have many instances of helping out, getting to know, working with and volunteering for activities for the special education students at my high school. I was an officer my junior year and chapter president my senior year of the business club DECA. While 50% of what we worked towards was building business skills etc the other half of our focus was on leadership and campus/community interactions and relationships. So the plethora of things we did- anti-drugs and anti-drinking and driving, Breaking Down the Walls (a school wide program to break stereotypes and cliques), the Life Skills Christmas Party, zoo trip, aquaruim trip, lunch buddies, MP mentors and so much more- were all a lot of fun, very interesting and learning experiences. I also spent much of my time coaching special olympic soccer so I felt that it be very suitable to volunteer at the Wallingford Boys and Girls club because my experience working with special needs kids of all ages and disability types.

Then I decided that I have learned how to work with special needs students for the past four years and while it would be somewhat different working with these kids at the boys and girls club I wouldn’t have to adapt much nor would my experience there be too extremely different than any other I had in high school. So I decided to use my high school volunteer experience as a basis for my volunteering now but stepping outside of my comfort zone of students I am used to working with and trying something new. By this I mean, I decided to volunteer at the North Seattle Boys and Girls Club where there are less disabled special needs students and more high risk students whose lives differ just as greatly from mine as those with disabilities.

I originally thought I could use what I knew to continue my volunteering but I’ve decided instead to take what I have learned in volunteering and apply it with a completely different type of people and completely different situation. So I am excited to get to know the students whose background and hardships are completely different from those I have grown up with and learn how to relate with students who aren’t disabled but who may come from broken homes or poverty.

Near the end of my junior year of high school, several friends started screenprinting original designs onto t-shirts and donated the profits to an orphanage in Haiti. We made the shirts in my friends basement and sold shirts at a leadership camps, a school craft fair, and a monthly street fair in NE Portland. We did a lot in the summer of 2006 and then all got busy once school started. We sold some shirts last summer, and some of the members still keep the organization alive.

It was positive because we ended up donating $400-500 dollars to the orphanage. That is not very much at all considering how much time each of us put into it though. If we had all spent that time working for minimum wage we probably could have raised $5000. But I am glad we did it, because I know way more about screenprinting then I did beforehand. It was also a lot of fun.

Only looking at how much we helped the orphanage, it was unproductive. Taking into account what all of us got out of it, it was productive.

When I hear the word “service”, I usually associate it with the notion of sacrifice. Some may argue that the intention or ulterior motive is usually different for each type of service, but I believe my association remains true when it comes to giving something up ‘to serve’. Sometimes time is given up, and other times energy is given up. In my case, I had to give up my fear of failure. Two years ago, I visited my sister in New York City for my spring break. She told me that I would be volunteering for her school. She works as a math teacher at Kipp Star School in Harlem, which is a charter school for 6th graders to 8th graders. At first, working as a tutor, it was overwhelming, because the kids had just met me and they let it be known that I was a stranger. Either through angry glances or words under their breath, they constantly nagged me. However, I decided to use humor with a couple of the kids that did respect me, and once I won over those kids, I ended up becoming very comfortable as a teaching assistant.

Throughout my high school career, I was a student who was up to their waist in “service learning.”  If there was tutoring to be done, I did it- I loved to volunteer, but the main project I completed was helping design and implement a freshman orientation program at my high school.  Starting my sophomore year, a group of students and myself got together and designed a program to help the transition of eighth grade students into the high school atmosphere.  We had to figure out what methods would be the most effective and when we decided on using peer mentors, we had to recruit and train around 150 students at the high school.  From the starting point to when I graduated the program had gone through some good and bad times.  It was tough trying to keep a program of that size effective but at the same time you were able to see the impact.  Overall I think the experience was helpful to my personal development and I believe it will help with my service learning in 121B.  In the orientation program I was able to interact and act as a mediator between students and staff at the school, so I think it’ll be helpful working in the Boys and Girls Club.

During my senior year of high school, it was required for all seniors to complete 40 hours of community service and a community service course. I was placed with a Head Start program at a local elementary school. The Head Start program aims to give children, ages 3-5 years old, from low income families the pre-school education they otherwise could not afford. I worked with these children twice a week, 2 hours a day from serving their breakfast to reading storybooks and playing games with them. This community service experience allowed me to realize that these organizations need all the help they can get and that although I was limited in my abilities, I was still a crucial part of their program. It was a very positive experience for me and I had a lot of fun working with the children.

I have had many chances and opportunities to serve my community as well as learn from these experiences, and sure enough I have served. One of the most prominent experiences I’ve had volunteering has been tutoring and mentoring young third graders at a local elementary in Federal Way, WA. It was during my sophomore and junior year. The kids were in need of much help, many of whom were ESL (English as a Second Language) students. I felt a huge burden to help and assist these kids, not to mention that I needed community service hours as well as extra credit in my Spanish class. However, these were just extra perks which made the experience that much better.

The experience can now be felt as beneficial and definitely positive. Not only does it look good on paper, but it gave me experience and the chance to impact the lives’ of numerous kids. The atmosphere was just amazing; right when you walk in the door they shout your name and just have a mood of excitement at your presence. Even if you aren’t teaching them anything, just being someone the child can talk to can have major benefits for the child. Nothing about it was unproductive or negative.

I now have experience with working with kids, and I believe that may help at the Boys and Girls Club. Hopefully it goes as smooth as my past experience.

I volunteered for 1 1/2 years at Jubilee Women’s Center, an organization that provided transitional housing and other services for women in poverty. It was an experience that worked out better than I would have expected. I needed service hours for my school, and I was interested in helping in JWC’s computer lab. The building was only a few blocks from my school, I was interested in computers, and it seemed like an organization worth supporting. Due to communication and organizational problems, I never ended up working at the computer lab, yet it ended up being a great experience – probably an even better experience than if I had worked exclusively at the lab. I spent a lot of time helping in their boutique, where women can get free clothing. There was consistently plenty of work to do – more than I could get done in my 2-hour shift. I had been reluctant to work in the boutique because I have no interest in or experience with clothing, yet it ended up working out well - fashion experience wasn’t needed, and I felt like I was really making a contribution. Although that was my default position, I also bounced around plenty, becoming an all-around assistant who could do whatever was needed. Again, this made me feel that I truly was addressing the organization’s needs – I wasn’t just creating a service opportunity where it hadn’t really existed. My service ended when the organization moved. They had *immense* need of volunteer help during the move, and as it happened, the move coincided exactly with the time period when I had finished school and hadn’t started working, so I was able to put in lengthy hours.

Myself and about 15 other sophomores, juniors, or senior from the Seattle area were Cabin Leaders at Waskowitz Outdoor School. It was for one week during March of 2007. Fifth and sixth graders from many different schools come with their teachers to spend the week in the forest of North Bend, Washington on the Snoqualmie River.

Our job as cabin leaders was to get our cabin groups excited about being at camp and help them bond with the other kids. We had to help them learn teamwork, how to respect nature, and help them get over homesickness.

It was a very positive experience and very productive. Our cabin won the Smokey Bear award for cabin cleanliness and spirit. The girls all became friends and I made a new friend with my co-cabin leader.

My Camp Waskowitz experience will help me with service learning at the Boys and Girls Club because I was working with children there. It was interesting to see how much they want to be like you, so I had to be a good example.

When I was in high school, we had to do 60 hours of mandatory community service to graduate. For about 20 of those hours, I chose to do freshman mentoring my senior year.. We met with the kids once a month, in their history class, in groups of 6 or 7 (at least– they were supposed to be groups of 6 or 7, but I was one of only about 2 people who consistently showed up, so it turned into us leading the entire class), and talked with them/played really lame games, etc.

It was actually a really interesting experience, way more so than I thought it would be. I didn’t connect very well with the black kids in my group, which I felt really bad about, and I unconsciously favored the kids who were siblings of my friends/people I knew, and talked to them more. I “adopted” a freshman into my group, who subsequently hit on me when we took the same bus one day. I developed less personal relationships than I had hoped, but still managed to have one of my kids (my best guy friend’s little sister) look up to me, which made me feel pretty good. I was really upset with the laxness of the other mentors in my class, and with the lead mentors for not giving us stuff to do that didn’t waste our (and their) time.

However, I think this experience will help me in the service learning for this class. I deliberately chose the Rotary club, not only because I went to Leschi and Washington, as I’m betting a lot of them do, and because I also grew up underprivileged, but to push myself into figuring out how to go against all of my history classes and society and interact properly with black kids. Hopefully I will develop some long term relationships with these kids, and will once again be a mentor.

I did volunteering at a local hospital in my junior year in high school. My initial intention was to have some extracurricular activities for my college applications. The volunteering job itself was dull. Most of the time I did my work changing and refilling things in patients’ rooms. Other times I would help the front desk file, print, and copy. I figured out little things that would help me get things done quickly. Overall it was a positive experience for me from the gratitude of helping out others. Although I would like to be doing things that are most productive, I think that this experience helped me with my “service-learning” in this class because I learned how to get through things that at first might seem dull but later on find good out of it.