Location: House Of The Good Shepherd
Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2014; 6:20-7:30 pm
I wasn’t planning to volunteer
tonight, but my colleague Kelley was going to HGS. She said that she was doing the ‘Junior’ version of the program, which
is for younger kids. Despite my several
visits to HGS, I had never done that project and I looked and saw that there
was an opening. Plus Wilson was the
leader and so I signed up. Kelley told
me that the kids were a handful and I was in for a challenging evening. I thought she may be exaggerating, but Wilson
confirmed that in a text. Ok then, this would be an interesting session. Wilson picked me up and our first stop was at
a ‘Dollar Store’ to get some balloons
and Popsicle sticks. He wanted to make
paddles using plates and sticks and use them to paddle balloons. We looked all over the store, but couldn’t
find the right sticks. So we settled on
some cardboard that we could use as paddles. We reached HGS well in advance and as we waited for the volunteers, the
kids started arriving and making a ruckus.
 |
| A river always runs through it |
Wilson asked if I would like to
start decorating my paddle. While he
drew a bunny, I did my usual scene with mountains, meadows and a river. I have been doing this since time immemorial,
ever since I saw this on a blanket label as a toddler. Every winter as the blankets came out; I
would spend a lot of time staring at the label – which was a scene at night –
and imagine what it would be like to live there. In college, one night as I studied for a
paper, I started drawing that scene on ‘MS
Paint’ and it came out very well. In
fact, for a few years after that, it became a file I would open and look at
many a time. I don’t know what happened
to that computer or the blanket, but my love for landscapes can be traced back
to that blanket. Last year I made a
Christmas card for a friend and incorporated the exact same image on it…with a
Santa of course.
The volunteers arrived and while
the younger kids seemed to have enough volunteers, the older kids program was
struggling. I told that leader, Melvin,
that I could switch if he needed me. A little girl had come in and asked if I was with younger or older
kids. I asked where would she want me,
and she replied “older”, so that I
could play with her. However, Melvin
said he was fine and so I went down to the room where the junior kids met, my
first time over there. The screaming
continue downstairs and the first task was to get the kids to make their
nametags, which they did using crayons.
During that process, one kid decided that it would be more fun to draw
on my shirt sleeve instead. Rather than
expend my energy trying to prevent him from doing that, I decided I would have
more success trying to wash it off instead and so I let him proceed. After he had drawn a few lines, I asked
Wilson where I could go to wash it off, and the nearest bathroom was upstairs,
near the older kid’s room. As I went
there, I ran into my friend Megan, who was volunteering with that group. I had met her more than a year ago at the ‘Library Maintenance’ project and now we
were in the same French class. It is
indeed a small world.
 |
| Our first book |
I came back to my room and saw a
little girl who did not have a partner.
I asked if she wanted to read and she nodded. We went to pick the books and I was impressed
that she wasn’t just selecting the top ones, but actually chose a few. The first one was called ‘Thomas and Friends: A Close Shave’. She knew the characters and while I was
trying to get us to read, she just flipped through it. Next we “read”
something by ‘Dr. Seuss’, then ‘Mickey Mouse’ and then some others with
colors and shapes. She liked flipping
through the pages, but she did want me to be paying attention. Every now and then I would ask her names of
colors and shapes and also ask her to locate them on the pages, which she
did. We finished this bunch of books and
then went and selected another pile. We
went through the same routine, with her flipping fast and pausing every now and
then to check if I was paying attention.
It was now time for the activity
and so we set off to decorate her two paddles.
She used all of the crayon colors that we available to us and was making
either triangle shapes or the letter ‘H’,
which was for her brother. I taped the
sticks to the paddles and made a couple of them for us to play with. For our balloon, she chose a pink one and I
helped her blow it up. She then decided
to make up her own activity, which was blowing the balloon in the air and then
trying to catch it with the two paddles.
Initially she was happy to play by herself, but then let me push the
balloon in the air while she tried to catch it with her paddles.
All the boys had chosen blue
balloons and for the next 20 minutes there was a lot of noise, lot of running
about and a lot of balloons in the air. Wilson
said that this was exactly the kind of activity these kids needed. Then it was time for them to go and one kid
came and hugged everyone. One of the
older girls came down to see what was going on and I gave her one of the balloons,
which is liked a lot. As the kids left,
I went upstairs to chat with Megan and she introduced me to the kid she was
with. He saw the paddle that I had made
earlier – the one with the landscape – and liked it. I asked if he wanted it and when he nodded,
gave it to him, happy to have an appreciative fan. The girl who had asked me to join the older
kids was there and I said that next time I will definitely join her.
It was their time to leave and
the boy with whom I had worked the last couple of times asked me to put on his
shoes, which I did. After the kids left,
I chatted with Melvin and he looked exhausted from handling all of these
kids. Wilson was telling him ideas like
isolating the kids in two groups so that “troublemakers”
can be kept apart. Melvin said that he
wants to take the kids outside when the weather gets better. I said bye to Megan and left with
Wilson. It had been wonderful to come and
its good thing that I had asked Kelley.
While I had enjoyed my time with my girl, it is definitely better to
work with the older kids. I am sure I
will be back soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment