Project Details - Journal

Day 1 March 11,2017


Today I said goodbye to my husband, and got on the plane to NYC. The lady sitting next to me on the plane gave me advice about being a strong independent woman. She started off as an education major but eventually started her own business.


When I landed one of the site leaders was there to pick me up and take me to the boys and girls club home. His name was chase. He gave me a tour of the house and then I helped sweep the stairs for other breakers to come tomorrow. Heather offered me some dinner as I was helping prepare the food for lunches. I am now sitting in the lounge area writing this blog post. We came a day early so they don't have much prepared for us. Everything starts tomorrow. It will be interesting to see what the week will bring. I definitely miss my husband but I know this will be a good experience.

Day 2


Today we went to the city to explore. It was took us two hours to get to the city and about two hours to get back we had a couple hours to explore Chinatown.when we came back groups were still coming together. The program then split us up into groups and we formed our teams. We all were a bit frustrated because we had signed up for hunger and homelessness and most of our school was put into the childcare group. For the most part that is what we did today.

Day 3


We woke up and had breakfast. We put our cots up and got ready for the day. It has been really unorganized here. We didn't know what we should be doing a small where we were to go. The site leader told us to clean the club house. Everyone pitched in and cleaned it up. But we still didn't receive my instruction on what needed to be done . Afterwards we sat around not having much todo. They didn't have a lot of activities to keep us focused. A lot of people sat around bored. Finally at 3 pm we were assigned a school to go to and the drivers needed to sign paper work. We got to the school around 4. Each person was assigned a grade and a teacher to work with. I worked with a second grade class. There were about 13 children. We helped them with homework. After homework they had a snack and the play time. The kids could do computers gym time or something else. They enjoyed being able to play and be kids!

Day4


Newark and new York experienced a blizzard. The boys and girls home was closed to all the kids. However we still tried to use our time wisely by writing letters to children in the hospital and soldiers serving our country. We had this out for people to do all day. There was also an opportunity clean up the house again. We made sure the house was clean at the end of the day so we could do things the next day. The program also put on a documentary called Salam Neighbor. It was about Syrian refugees.

I was touched by the documentary. They highlighted a couple different people in the film. And little boy and his father, a single mother with children, and a middle aged man. Each had different stories of how the war affected their family. While letter writing I was able to talk to one of my friends. She has been in the hospital as a child and helped me make my letters more meaningful by adding a game to my letter. I wrote two letters children. With one letter I made a maze that they could do and another letter that had a word search. As I was writing the letter I was surprised at how difficult it was to write to someone I didn't know. I didn't know what they were going through. I thought a long time about what I should write, I eventually told them that they are strong, and that someone is thinking of them and believing in them. I needed to rethink about how I live my life. I need to start focusing on my surroundings. There is so much that I can do in my own small community in cedar city. I can start helping those who don't have anyone who believes in them.


My team also helped with dinner cleanup duty. We had a fun time washing dishes.

Day 5


The schools were closed today, however the BGC was still open. They were hoping to get at least 20 kids at the club but because of the storm only 8 kids showed up. We had a great time playing games with them. They didn't have homework so we just spent time with all of them. I play a lot of connect 4 and sorry with the kids. However there were 70 volunteers and 8 kids so we couldn't play with them all day. We tried to let other volunteers play with them. When the kids went up for lunch we switched what volunteers could work with the kids. Other club house members cleaned and organized the classrooms.


Later that day the allowed us to have an excursion to New York City. My group was able to see a lot of things. We went to Rockefeller center, Empire State Building, and grand central station.


The men from our school were great they would get our cots set up for us to sleep.

Day 6


In the morning we had the opportunity to explore the city again before our service. We went to Central Park, Columbus Circle, and the Lincoln Center.


We had the opportunity to go to the NYC Food Bank. We helped pack and sort dry goods. In the end, based off of the food we packed and sorted we helped provide 3700 meals for the food bank to give to the hungry people of new York. We needed to sort them into different categories. Snacks, dairy, protein, beverages, fruit, grains, vegetables, condiments, and hygiene. We had 5 different tables that each had about 2 categories. The would bring in big crates of food and we would open the boxes and sort them and box them up with the specified amount of weight needed for each category. The person working with us said we about doubled the amount of food packed compared to the average volunteers.

Day 7


In the morning the club house didn't need to be cleaned. So the program let us go on another excursion before we had our service. We went to Statue of Liberty, World Trade Center, and little Italy.


We then went back to the schools. We worked at the Newark's Life academy. Today was their fun Friday. The kids didn't have homework so they were able to play in structured activities. I went to the step group. The program has a dance studio in their school. A volunteer teacher came to help teach the kids how to step. I was able to help keep the kids organized and help them respect the teacher. I was impressed by how well these 2nd grade kids could dance.


When we returned back to the club we had a reflection period of our day and then of our week. The put about 8 of us in a circle and had us turn around and close our eyes then 3-4 people would stand up and the instructor would read comments like "you made me laugh" " you inspired me to be a better person." If that applied to anyone sitting in the circle the people standing in the circle would tap their shoulder. Everyone had the opportunity to tap shoulders. It was anonymous as to who was tapping you! I found this to be a very effective way to reflect without making people talk about their experience.


As good of an experience as that was I proceeded to have and anxiety attack. I wasn't able to breathe normally for about 15 minutes. The sight director called my husband who could calm me down.


The planned activity was the slide show at the end.


While we were setting up cots we saw rolling boards. We had a race with who ever wanted to. We played for a little bit and then we went to bed.

Day 8


Flight home.