Hello again! Now that the second week is complete I feel a little more confident about my project and what I will be doing for my internship.
On Saturday, Habitat for Humanity had a Serve the City event at Grand Canyon University (GCU), where they helped improve eleven houses near the campus. At most of the sites they were repainting the houses, although at a few they were doing the landscaping and replacing dead grass with gravel. I showed up around 7:30 a.m (I was supposed to be there at 7am but my alarm didn’t go off which was an excuse I never believed until it happened to me but then I realized I had accidentally set the alarm to go off on weekdays only so basically I’m a dumb, dumb person who regrets everything cool bye)
Anyway, when I got there I helped sign people into one of the eleven groups. After that, all of the GCU students walked to the site they would be helping on and I went in a car with Cassandra (my On-Site Mentor and Director of Sponsor Relations) and Grace (in charge of Faith Relations and a ton of other stuff). At each of the sites Cassandra went and talked to the kind of system of management at each site (House Leaders in yellow shirts, Team Leaders in brown, general employees in green, and the homeowners in orange), making sure that everything was running smoothly. At each site Grace and I made sure that we had all of the forms from each volunteer and also took the sign that said which team color they were. And that was the end of Saturday!
Wednesday and Thursday I continued to work on the housing simulation from last week, finally finishing it Thursday with a document of 37 pages. After that I did some data entry from surveys planning meeting dates of the Young Professionals group, which is basically a way for younger adults to volunteer and advocate for Habitat while developing other skills like public speaking, etc. When I finished this Cassandra gave me a gigantic binder and box labelled “Just Neighbors” to look over for ideas. It was basically church programming for adults to better understand housing issues and poverty. It came with two videocassettes (it was very old), which I couldn’t watch because I didn’t have access to a VCR, but I could tell from the instructions that there was video of a family that was losing their house and discussing the things that had lead them to that point. The binder had activities such as balancing the family's budget, as well as quizzes and fact sheets. It also had a dated section on race with a “privileges checklist” and a recommendation to call non-caucasian people “people of color”. It was a fairly entertaining read.
The last day, Friday, I was at the Mesa Restore because 60 students from Gilbert Christian High School were volunteering there on a field trip. I once again helped sign people in and then we went around making sure that everyone had something to do and didn’t need anything.
And... that was the end of the week! Hopefully the next one will be just as productive!
k bye.
Sarah
Wow, Sarah, you had a very exciting week! I'm always afraid that during the week I'll forget to set my alarm. Knock on wood, it hasn't happened yet. Anyway, I'm so glad you had such a wonderful week. I love your posts! They're always so entertaining. So my question is, would turning the VCR with the instructions into a DVD (or maybe make a YouTube video or do they already have that?) help advocate for Habitat or are they just going to stick with the paper instructions? Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kiri! For now, I'm not really sure what's going to happen with the Just Neighbors program. I think it was mainly meant to be inspiration for later projects, but I guess I'll find out later.
DeleteHi Sarah, sounds like you had a fun and productive week at your internship, I bet that it is very interesting to be able to be a part of an organization that really is able to help the less-fortunate. I can tell that you are able to provide a lot of help to the supervision aspect of Habitat for Humanity! Until next week, Good luck!
ReplyDeleteConnor Williamson
Thank you!
DeleteHiya Sarah. I, like Kiri, think your posts are entertaining and wonderful and I just wanted to let you know that. Also, it sounds like we're administrative buddies, so that's exciting!
ReplyDeleteThanks Nicole! It sounds like your office has been pretty exciting with the protesters and all (also you went to Haiti, cool!). Can't wait to see how your project goes!
DeleteHi Sarah!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you had a great week. It's amazing that you were able to write a 37 page document on your housing simulation and the meticulous attention that you pay to every detail about those who are less fortunate. Thank you for your detailed posts and good luck!
Vara Vungutur
Thanks!
DeleteHi Sarah! I'm glad that I'm not the only one who has occasional issues with waking up and setting my alarm. It's really a hassle for us night owls you know. (I'm assuming you're a night owl, but my assumptions may be incorrect. Who knows?)
ReplyDeleteI wanted to talk more about the binder with the cassette tapes and the activity stuff. Do you think an activity like that could be something we try out in H4H clubs at school? I was just wondering because it sounds pretty interesting and informative. That's it for now. But I'm very excited to see where this project is heading.
Hi Robert! I am a night owl and I hate waking up. Anyway, I'm not sure that anything is going to happen with the Just Neighbors program, specifically, but programs like it could certainly be used at school Habitat clubs. A lot of the activities in it were similar to the Housing simulation, which could definitely be used at school clubs like ours.
DeleteIt sounds like this week was a great and productive week. I am very excited to see how this project keeps developing week by week. It is a wonderful opportunity you have to help those who are less-fortunate. I really do believe that participating in projects like this can help you learn a lot for the future, and I am very excited to see next weeks post and hopefully learn some more details about this incredible project.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteHola Sarah, I really enjoy reading about what you are able to do for Habitat for Humanity. Do you plan on doing anymore hands on projects with them as a part of your project? I look forward to reading more about next weeks excursions.
ReplyDeleteHi Lauren! I think that there are a few more youth events planned during my internship, so I will probably be involved on-site in a few more things. I know there are Youth United (the overall youth program) meetings scheduled soon, which I will most likely go to. Thanks!
DeleteHi Sarah! It sounds like you had a very productive week. Are you going to be involved with the Young Professionals group or was that work for your internship? I found it interesting that Habitat for Humanity wants to get young adults involved in volunteering. I am so glad that they are doing things like the groups to educate the population. Hope you have good weeks to come.
ReplyDeleteHello and thanks! I'm primarily focusing on the younger kids, mainly those who are under 15, but I'm also doing whatever needs to be done around the office. I think that Grace and Cassandra are mainly dealing with the Young Professionals group.
DeleteSounds like you have had a busy week. How many simulations did you write? You said it was 37 pages and that sounds really long! I was also wondering, are you using the old educational materials to get ideas for things to do or not do for your own projects?
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your work!
Hi Serena! It was one housing simulation but in that simulation there were 18 separates characters, each with their own background story and Character Sheet for each of the student participants. There were also 7 Administrator Sheets, which had the information on each type of housing (ie: how much it costed, pets/no pets, # of rooms, etc.). These were for the teachers or Habitat members acting as the apartments and other housing options to tell the students whether or not they could stay there. For each of these housing options, there was a separate application form that the students would have to fill out. There were also overall instructions and information about Habitat for Humanity within the simulation packet. Yes, the older educational materials were mainly for inspiration, I think.
DeleteLooks like your second week went well. Looks like you are slowly getting into the flow of things.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I definitely feel more confident with everything than the first week.
DeleteWow Sarah your making some great progress. My only question is, will you ever be interested in remodeling houses in run down, inner city communities.--Ismail Hamed 10
ReplyDeleteThank you! I am interested in and probably will end up helping remodel houses through the Habitat for Humanity club at school, but for my internship I am mostly doing more administrative or organizational tasks.
DeleteYou had a busy week! Don't worry about not waking up to your alarm - it happens to everyone at least once! Based on your observations so far, what do you expect will be the biggest motivators to get people more involved with an organization like Habitat for Humanity?
ReplyDeleteHi Ms. Conner! I think probably the biggest thing will be fun activities that introduce them to preexisting organizations and communities like school clubs. Once they become a part of these communities I think they will want to continue with Habitat for Humanity as they get older.
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