Read-With-Me At AIC

Location: American Indian Center

Date: Tuesday, April 23, 2013; 6:00-7:00 pm

The sign that I had become a Chicago Cares veteran was exhibited this evening when I showed up for a project without signing up.  Plus it was Wilson’s project, which meant he would let me in.  I soon regretted my decision when I got caught in rain and was totally drenched when I arrived at the AIC.  Irina was attending this one and we were led to a big auditorium, where Wilson had assembled with other volunteers and the kids were playing catch with a giant beach ball.  I recognized Anesha, her sister Idelle, Pia and a new girl, Alisha.  Amongst the other volunteers was Tash whom I had met before.  I joined the kids’ game, but soon Wilson called us all to order and it was time for introductions.  

The table with Chicago map

For ice breaker Wilson asked us to name our birthday and our favorite healthy food.  Now, this was a great idea since kids should be encouraged to eat healthy, but I was going to struggle to come up with something.  A lot of the kids said tomatoes as their favorite food, including Irina, who claimed that she has had food containing a tomato each day of her adult life.  When my turn came, I said my favorite healthy food was chocolate - hey, there as a lot of health bars with chocolate.  At least I had a better answer than Wilson, who said that his favorite healthy food was bacon!

We moved upstairs to our usual meeting place and gathered around the main table, which has the painting of Chicagoland from the turn of last century, with all the Indian reservation land on it.  Wilson said that we should play a spelling game where each of us would get a bunch of cards and could ask the others to spell words that were on them.  This was quite entertaining and useful, since it taught the kids the value of breaking down a word phonetically and the spelling it.  Alisha’s Aunt was in our group and she claimed that Alisha could spell at a 5^th grade level.  She was quite good and was in fact the person to give me my word to spell – “Trolley”.  I managed to navigate that and then it was my turn to give someone else a word.  I chose Anesha and asked her to spell “Star”.  She was able to do that as well as all the other words that came her way.  In fact, all the kids did extremely well at spelling and since we were running out of time, we moved to the arts component of the evening’s agenda. 

The flower pots

The kids had started painting pots the previous week and we were going to be planting flower seeds in those.  Wilson also had some plain pots for the rest of us to paint if we so wished.  Irina and some of the other volunteers started painting, quite competitively I must say, while I started working with the kids.  Anesha had her pot ready to go and so we put some soil in it and lots of wildflower seeds.  Then we covered with soil and finally, watered the pot and kept it aside.  I repeated the process with other kids, fluctuating between some of the other seeds and even plant bulbs.  After we had all the pots filled and watered, Wilson moved them next to the window, where they would reside under sunlight and we were expected to see results in a few days to weeks. 

And mine

In the meanwhile, the volunteers were really focused on painting their pots and Wilson insisted that I paint one as well.  He brought me one with a while coating and I painted a yellow smiley face on it, complete with a tongue!  I went to wash up and it was interesting to see the art in the bathroom, depicting Native American culture and images.  On my way back I encountered Pia who saw that I was clean, and proceeded to put paint on my hands, so that I would have to wash up again.  She enjoyed that one and went and told everybody that she had made me go to the bathroom again in order to clean.  Aah kids!   This reminded me of scenes from a long time ago, when I used to be in school and such things were customary.  Before leaving I asked Wilson about his work at the Red Cross shelter, with the recent floods.  He told me about the 27 hour shift on Saturday and how he had to stay for more time because no came to take it down and so he had to do that.  We discussed some upcoming projects and I left to go back in the rain.  This was my first ‘gatecrashing’ with Chicago Cares and based on the fun that I had, it may not be the last; especially if it’s one of Wilson’s projects.  

*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy