Blog 2: The second day at the site began with me and another couple of the girls visiting the infant room. We met the teacher in there and she was extremely kind and appreciative that we had decided to spend our spring break at Ark. We started off by taking some old toys from their room and switching them out with new toys which we had gotten upstairs. After this, we held and played with the baby in the infant room. He was very adorable and fun to spend time with, as well as very talkative. After we spent some quality time with the baby, we ate lunch. For the second half of our day, we began organizing and clearing out the upstairs room. This room was extremely cluttered with toys and donations. The appearance resembled as if a tornado had swept through the room and left a large sum of debris. This room also happened to be the director’s office, and I just could not imagine having to share an office space with the amount of clutter that existed in this room. Our group really had no idea how to start cleaning the upstairs, but we managed to throw away some old toys, and give duplicates to donate for the families that come to Ark. We all became pretty overwhelmed with the abundance of things in this room. It was very stressful to make a dent in this mess, but we overcame these struggles and ended up making a huge alteration to the upstairs disaster that crowded the director’s breathing and planning space. This concluded our second day at Ark.
When we got back to the hotel, there were free nachos in the lobby so this excited our group. We all chilled out for a bit, and I ended up falling asleep around 6:30 pm. I guess I really needed some extra sleep after the draining day we had experienced. This night I had some pretty upsetting dreams about my boyfriend cheating on me, which I was extremely thankful that these ended up being just dreams and not my reality.
Blog 3: This was our third day at our site and resulted in much less stress than the previous day. We were told that we were supposed to give the board of directors twenty-five pieces of art work. One of the girls found a cute idea on Pintrest pertaining to Easter. The artwork involved painting the children’s feet, one with orange paint and one with purple paint. Next, we turned the purple foot into a bunny rabbit and the orange foot into a carrot. The artwork read Happy Easter at the top, and we added some final touches of chicks, and other details. During craft time with the kids, I really enjoyed painting the kid’s feet. Some of them giggled when we painted their feet and they were all very excited to help us with the project. Another girl and I noticed that a couple of the kids actually had some green coloring on their feet that was not natural. This concerned us and we speculated if their caretakers or parents practiced proper cleanliness at home. Although the kids came to Ark because of family stress and dysfunctional circumstances, this still made my heart ache for these kids.
After we finished our art project our group headed outside to clean up the play area. We raked leaves and swept up the messes outside, as well as cleaned up any trash. As we cleaned up outside, eventually the kiddos came outside for playtime. One young boy came up to me while I was sweeping and asked if he could help me clean. It was super adorable to have a little helper by my side. During outside time we got to interact with the Pre-K kids and it was absolutely enjoyable. They were full of an abundance of energy, and it was refreshing to be able to play with the kids after all the hard work we had completed. This concluded our third day at Ark.
When we got back to our hotel we ate dinner, and then went to Sonic to enjoy some half priced shakes. After this we headed down to the Ohio River and talked for a bit about our day just to reflect on some of the things we had experienced so far. Overall, it was a very good day.
Blog 4: In this post, I will discuss my fourth and fifth day at our site. To start off, our fourth day began with organizing the clothes upstairs, folding and sizing them, as well as labeling the sections to distinguish the sizes. After this we headed down to the Pre-K room to play with the kids and let me just say the kids had an extreme abundance of energy. We played for a bit and then took a lunch break.
After lunch we went outside to play with the Pre-K kids and their energy levels must have risen since we last saw them. Most of our group could not spend more than an hour outside with the kids, because we were drained. So we headed inside to organize a ton of books that the center had received as donations, as well as categorize the books. This ended our fourth day at Ark.
We headed back to the hotel to relax for a while and then decided to venture out to go shopping for a bit. I was able to buy a few presents for friends and we had some nice group bonding time over our shopping trip. After shopping, we all decided to go to Steak N’ Shake to get some shakes. We all seemed to be craving ice cream our entire trip and made several outings for ice cream. It was nice to sit down and have valuable group time over ice cream. We finally headed back to the hotel about 11 pm and my roommate and I ended up having some very interesting and engaging conversations before we went to sleep. This concluded our stimulating Wednesday.
Thursday was our fifth day at our site. We kicked off the morning by visiting our favorite room, the Pre-K room. We did some block building and played dinosaurs. One of the young girls had gotten a toy pried out of her hands by another young girl, and her reaction was to immediately slap the other girl. She was put on “red” for her behavior, which was unacceptable. I wonder the examples she experienced at home to cause her to become violent. This surprised our group and also caused us to empathize with the young girl. The teacher, Miss Becca surely had her hands full with the Pre-K kids, but we all admired her ability to handle all of these children. Next, two of the girls and I went into the toddler room to play puzzles and read books before lunch. This one girl always wanted to sit on my lap and play puzzles with me. I thought this was absolutely adorable! After the kids cleaned up, we sang songs before lunch. The girl that sat on my lap was smiling and giggling the whole time. She was very into the songs. There was one little boy that we tried to get to join in with us, but the whole time he did not song, smile or talk. He must have had a rough home life. The way that some of the kids acted made us wonder what they had been going through at home, although we did not want to assume anything, but rather be there for the kids and love them.
After this we went upstairs to eat lunch and then split up to finish organizing the upstairs. I worked on sorting and consolidating the craft corner for about an hour. We finished up our day at Ark working on making huge banners for their Fairytale Ball in April. They were made out of colored felt and held together with hot glue. I would say that we all did a nice job on the banners. This concluded our second to last day at Ark. When we got back to the hotel we ate dinner and relaxed for a little while. We then left to visit the local mall. We shopped for a couple hours and then met with one of the girls at Starbucks. Me and my chemistry buddy did some studying for an upcoming test and made some huge progress. After Starbucks we headed back to the hotel and had a short movie night with popcorn and M & M’s. Shortly after this we decided to go to bed. This concluded the second to last day.
Blog 5: In this post, I will discuss our last day at our site, as well as the next day when we headed home. Our last day at the site was very bittersweet. We could not believe that it was almost time to leave, even though it had felt like we just arrived there. We began the day by visiting our favorite kids in the Pre-K room. We headed outside with them and had so much fun playing outside with them. We played basketball with a couple of the little boys, play baseball with oversized play balls, and played in their authentic sandbox full of beans. Next we set up some tables and chairs for a meeting, and then headed upstairs to relax for a bit before lunch.
For lunch, the director decided to take us to a local pizza place. It was extremely kind for her to take us out to eat! It was also nice to be able to talk to her one on one for a little bit and get to know her better. Lunch was delicious, and after we left we headed to Babies R’ Us to pick up a load of donations. We spent the remainder of our afternoon sorting and putting away the clothes, as well as choosing certain outfits to save back for their Fairytale Ball. These were some of the cutest baby clothes I had ever seen in my life! After we finished putting away the donations, we went outside to play with the two kids who had not left yet. It was pretty sad when we had to leave Ark. None of us wanted to go. We all loved this organization so much and were very inspired by being able to spend our week making an impact at their organization. It began to feel like our home away from home, right before we had to depart.
When we got back to our hotel, we relaxed for just a bit and then headed out for a hockey game. The director was kind enough to give us some free tickets. For most of us, this was our first hockey game. It was really enjoyable and exciting. After the hockey game, we got back to our hotel to pack and prepare to head back home.
The next day we woke up about 7:30 am to eat breakfast and then make our way back to Kansas. The car ride home was pretty fun, as we sang songs and reminisced on the amazing week we had. It was sad having to say goodbye to all of these amazing women. I had the best time of my life at Ark Crisis spending my week with four amazing girls. Being able to see those children smiling and being carefree really made my heart warm. This was definitely a trip that I will cherish for the rest of my life, and there is not any other way that I would have wanted to spend my spring break of 2015.
Blog One: Monday My first day at AIDS Foundation Houston was thrilling! I was so excited to finally see the foundation and to experience what goes on there on a daily basis. After so many weeks of anticipation, it was so exhilarating to finally really be there. The building was structured much like a doctor’s office, with narrow hallways and many small rooms that were off from the corridors such as offices and meeting rooms. We were met by the volunteer coordinator, Niki, who gave us a brief overview of what AFH is all about. We learned that their biggest ideology is “housing is healthcare.” Niki told us about the multitude of services AFH provides for their clients, such as housing, nutrition, support groups, and help with being linked-in to care with medical professionals in the area. We did some odd tasks around the foundation such as writing thank you notes and organizing folders. The thank you notes, Niki explained, were a nice thing to send to people who had donated money to the organization. Not only was it a nice gesture, but it helped keep the foundation in the minds of people who had recently participated in a fundraising walk and encouraged more donations in the future. We also helped Crystal make awards for people who are currently incarcerated if they completed “Wall Talk,” a program that educates inmates about HIV/AIDS. At the end of the day, we helped Kevin, who coordinates the mobile community outreach program. We helped him by making the folders people fill out before being tested for HIV in their mobile testing center, which is a large van that they can bring to places in the metropolitan area to better reach their target populations. Bringing testing to the people is much easier and much more effective than bringing the people to the testing, and testing and knowing your status is the first step in preventing the spread of STIs and HIV. Overall, my first day was wonderful. I learned so much, even in one day! I am so excited to see what the rest of the week has in store!
Blog Two: Tuesday My second day working with AFH was definitely more hands-on, which I really enjoyed. We went to Friendly Haven, which is AFH’s housing facility for those of their clients who need it. Because their ideology is “housing is healthcare,” it is truly important that they provide a clean, safe, and comfortable environment for people living with HIV and for their families. The people residing at Friendly Haven would not otherwise have housing. Without housing, how can we expect them to be receiving the medical care they need? Seeing Friendly Haven was such an amazing experience. The apartments were really nice, and it was cool to see that it was fenced off, giving it a private, tightly knit feeling. The sense of community within it was astounding. We arrived at 10 AM and started painting a large deck outside of the main office. As we painted, kids ages five to fifteen were playing on a small basketball court right by us. We struck up friendly conversation about basketball, which of course led to talk about the upcoming March Madness tournament and the Jayhawks. Seeing the wide age range of all the children playing together was really interesting. I kept thinking that it was so nice that even though they were there for an overall pretty horrible reason, it was so nice that they had this kind of community for support. AFH does more than provide housing through Friendly Haven; they create a large family that can truly understand one another, because they’re all going through the same thing. We finished painting the patio in just a little over five hours, and it looked wonderful. I left Friendly Haven this afternoon with a little paint in my hair and a little more of a smile on my face knowing that I was working for a truly wonderful organization this break.
Blog Three: Wednesday Today was really tough. We were supposed to do more maintenance work outside at Friendly Haven, but it was pouring outside. Our volunteering for the day was cancelled, but we as a team were a little uncomfortable with the idea of doing nothing for the day. We contacted Niki, our volunteer coordinator at the foundation, and she found a project for us to do. The maintenance worker at Friendly Haven, Fred, wanted us to help him with repainting an apartment. We headed over to Friendly Haven and were handed some brushes and a big bucket of paint, but nothing could have prepared us for the room we walked into. The first thing that hit us was the foul stench of the apartment. Then, looking around, we could see the gunk on the walls, the dirt and other debris caked along the trimming where the walls and floor met, and the muck that was stuck to the floor where the couch had been. On the floor were dead cockroaches, there was tobacco that had be taken out of the paper it was rolled in for cigarettes, and most heartbreakingly, a child’s scribbles along the wall. This was the most squalid living conditions I had ever seen first hand. This is what poverty looked like. No sugar coating. My first instinct was to ask for bleach. We couldn’t just paint over whatever disgusting residue was on the walls. The next person to move in to this apartment would be affected with HIV/AIDS, which already gives them a weakened immune system. Painting over wouldn’t only be lying, but also putting their health in danger. We scrubbed the walls and the floor with a concentrated bleach solution to the best of our abilities to at least sanitize, and then we painted over the walls. It was really emotionally tough to see how some people in poverty actually live this way, especially knowing there was a child there. After we finished painting the room, we felt we had done the right thing, but we all left with heavy hearts. We’d all grown up very sheltered from this kind of condition, and seeing it first hand was so strikingly sad. It’s stuck with us all day.
Day Four: Thursday Today was a lot of fun, which we really needed to bring our morale back up from yesterday. We met with Angel, the kid coordinator at Friendly Haven, to take the kids to the park. We loaded up the van with footballs, kickballs, bubbles, jump ropes, and more and headed over to have our play day with the kids of Friendly Haven. Around twenty kids were there in all, ranging between three and fifteen years old. Leah and Chance kicked off the park day with a game of flag football, which I opted out of to blow bubbles with the younger girls and to play on the monkey bars with the littlest guy there. I’m definitely a kid at heart. I learned all of their names fairly quickly and in no time we were good pals. The kids were all having fun climbing trees, blowing bubbles, jumping rope, and playing with their friends. After flag football, we divided into two teams for kickball: Team Jayhawk and Team Beyoncé. It was an evenly matched game and it got really intense! The kids were all amazingly good sports, cheering each other on and congratulating each other on good plays. Leah and I taught our team, Team Jayhawk, some fun KU chants and we pumped them up to get their spirit going. We all had such a blast and we wished it didn’t have to end! If there’s something I would like to see go differently next year for this site, it would be to spend more time with the kids. After a short few hours with the kids, it was time for us to go to our next volunteer site, and they were sad we weren’t going to the Boys and Girls Club with them. After bonding in such a short amount of time, we were sad to go. We all had a blast. Later on in the evening, we joined Shaquoiya and Kevin in Montrose for community outreach. We went to bars and handed out condoms to promote safe sex and told people about the mobile testing a few blocks away. I had a wonderful time perusing the neighborhood and seeing the community AFH directly benefits. Shequoiya was so knowledgeable about STI and HIV prevention, as well as about education in the community. I learned so much, we helped spread awareness, and I had a great time while doing it!
Blog Five: Friday Wow, it’s so strange to think that today was really our last day with the foundation. This week flew by far too quickly! We arrived at the foundation for lunch, which Niki sweetly provided for us as a thank you. We watched an hour long documentary about the growing problem of HIV/AIDS in the South and the social issues that arise along with the number of those infected. It was a really great documentary because it showed, on a very personal level, what it was like to live in the South today with HIV/AIDS, and the social, economic, and medical problems that came with it. After watching the film, we had a short Q&A with members of the foundation where we talked about everything from what each person specifically does for the organization to how public school’s sex education is affecting the rate of HIV transmission. The people at the foundation are truly such patrons on the topic and know so much. I feel really lucky to have met them and had the opportunity to speak with them about these issues. I want to be an infectious disease doctor, and many of my patients will be infected with HIV. It’s so important to know more than just the medical side of it. To truly understand what my patients are living with, I need to know the social aspects of it, too, such as stigma and poverty. Next, we finished off our volunteering by writing more thank you notes, organizing papers, and creating packs of business cards for the organization. Although it doesn’t seem like much, we saved them hours of work and they were able to get so much more done for the organization during that time because of it. Every little bit helps. Leaving AFH today was very bittersweet. I feel as though I was just beginning to really connect with the organization on a deeper level, and now it’s over. But I have gained so much from this opportunity. I learned so much about a population I knew so little about to begin with, and I was able to help an organization that is doing so much good for them. Between thank yous, playing with kids affected by HIV, and handing out condoms to prevent new infections, I fell in love with this organization. One day, I hope we can get to zero.
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ReplyDeleteBlog 2:
ReplyDeleteThe second day at the site began with me and another couple of the girls visiting the infant room. We met the teacher in there and she was extremely kind and appreciative that we had decided to spend our spring break at Ark. We started off by taking some old toys from their room and switching them out with new toys which we had gotten upstairs. After this, we held and played with the baby in the infant room. He was very adorable and fun to spend time with, as well as very talkative. After we spent some quality time with the baby, we ate lunch. For the second half of our day, we began organizing and clearing out the upstairs room. This room was extremely cluttered with toys and donations. The appearance resembled as if a tornado had swept through the room and left a large sum of debris. This room also happened to be the director’s office, and I just could not imagine having to share an office space with the amount of clutter that existed in this room. Our group really had no idea how to start cleaning the upstairs, but we managed to throw away some old toys, and give duplicates to donate for the families that come to Ark. We all became pretty overwhelmed with the abundance of things in this room. It was very stressful to make a dent in this mess, but we overcame these struggles and ended up making a huge alteration to the upstairs disaster that crowded the director’s breathing and planning space. This concluded our second day at Ark.
When we got back to the hotel, there were free nachos in the lobby so this excited our group. We all chilled out for a bit, and I ended up falling asleep around 6:30 pm. I guess I really needed some extra sleep after the draining day we had experienced. This night I had some pretty upsetting dreams about my boyfriend cheating on me, which I was extremely thankful that these ended up being just dreams and not my reality.
Blog 3:
ReplyDeleteThis was our third day at our site and resulted in much less stress than the previous day. We were told that we were supposed to give the board of directors twenty-five pieces of art work. One of the girls found a cute idea on Pintrest pertaining to Easter. The artwork involved painting the children’s feet, one with orange paint and one with purple paint. Next, we turned the purple foot into a bunny rabbit and the orange foot into a carrot. The artwork read Happy Easter at the top, and we added some final touches of chicks, and other details. During craft time with the kids, I really enjoyed painting the kid’s feet. Some of them giggled when we painted their feet and they were all very excited to help us with the project. Another girl and I noticed that a couple of the kids actually had some green coloring on their feet that was not natural. This concerned us and we speculated if their caretakers or parents practiced proper cleanliness at home. Although the kids came to Ark because of family stress and dysfunctional circumstances, this still made my heart ache for these kids.
After we finished our art project our group headed outside to clean up the play area. We raked leaves and swept up the messes outside, as well as cleaned up any trash. As we cleaned up outside, eventually the kiddos came outside for playtime. One young boy came up to me while I was sweeping and asked if he could help me clean. It was super adorable to have a little helper by my side. During outside time we got to interact with the Pre-K kids and it was absolutely enjoyable. They were full of an abundance of energy, and it was refreshing to be able to play with the kids after all the hard work we had completed. This concluded our third day at Ark.
When we got back to our hotel we ate dinner, and then went to Sonic to enjoy some half priced shakes. After this we headed down to the Ohio River and talked for a bit about our day just to reflect on some of the things we had experienced so far. Overall, it was a very good day.
Blog 4:
ReplyDeleteIn this post, I will discuss my fourth and fifth day at our site. To start off, our fourth day began with organizing the clothes upstairs, folding and sizing them, as well as labeling the sections to distinguish the sizes. After this we headed down to the Pre-K room to play with the kids and let me just say the kids had an extreme abundance of energy. We played for a bit and then took a lunch break.
After lunch we went outside to play with the Pre-K kids and their energy levels must have risen since we last saw them. Most of our group could not spend more than an hour outside with the kids, because we were drained. So we headed inside to organize a ton of books that the center had received as donations, as well as categorize the books. This ended our fourth day at Ark.
We headed back to the hotel to relax for a while and then decided to venture out to go shopping for a bit. I was able to buy a few presents for friends and we had some nice group bonding time over our shopping trip. After shopping, we all decided to go to Steak N’ Shake to get some shakes. We all seemed to be craving ice cream our entire trip and made several outings for ice cream. It was nice to sit down and have valuable group time over ice cream. We finally headed back to the hotel about 11 pm and my roommate and I ended up having some very interesting and engaging conversations before we went to sleep. This concluded our stimulating Wednesday.
Thursday was our fifth day at our site. We kicked off the morning by visiting our favorite room, the Pre-K room. We did some block building and played dinosaurs. One of the young girls had gotten a toy pried out of her hands by another young girl, and her reaction was to immediately slap the other girl. She was put on “red” for her behavior, which was unacceptable. I wonder the examples she experienced at home to cause her to become violent. This surprised our group and also caused us to empathize with the young girl. The teacher, Miss Becca surely had her hands full with the Pre-K kids, but we all admired her ability to handle all of these children.
Next, two of the girls and I went into the toddler room to play puzzles and read books before lunch. This one girl always wanted to sit on my lap and play puzzles with me. I thought this was absolutely adorable! After the kids cleaned up, we sang songs before lunch. The girl that sat on my lap was smiling and giggling the whole time. She was very into the songs. There was one little boy that we tried to get to join in with us, but the whole time he did not song, smile or talk. He must have had a rough home life. The way that some of the kids acted made us wonder what they had been going through at home, although we did not want to assume anything, but rather be there for the kids and love them.
After this we went upstairs to eat lunch and then split up to finish organizing the upstairs. I worked on sorting and consolidating the craft corner for about an hour. We finished up our day at Ark working on making huge banners for their Fairytale Ball in April. They were made out of colored felt and held together with hot glue. I would say that we all did a nice job on the banners. This concluded our second to last day at Ark.
When we got back to the hotel we ate dinner and relaxed for a little while. We then left to visit the local mall. We shopped for a couple hours and then met with one of the girls at Starbucks. Me and my chemistry buddy did some studying for an upcoming test and made some huge progress. After Starbucks we headed back to the hotel and had a short movie night with popcorn and M & M’s. Shortly after this we decided to go to bed. This concluded the second to last day.
Blog 5:
ReplyDeleteIn this post, I will discuss our last day at our site, as well as the next day when we headed home. Our last day at the site was very bittersweet. We could not believe that it was almost time to leave, even though it had felt like we just arrived there. We began the day by visiting our favorite kids in the Pre-K room. We headed outside with them and had so much fun playing outside with them. We played basketball with a couple of the little boys, play baseball with oversized play balls, and played in their authentic sandbox full of beans. Next we set up some tables and chairs for a meeting, and then headed upstairs to relax for a bit before lunch.
For lunch, the director decided to take us to a local pizza place. It was extremely kind for her to take us out to eat! It was also nice to be able to talk to her one on one for a little bit and get to know her better. Lunch was delicious, and after we left we headed to Babies R’ Us to pick up a load of donations. We spent the remainder of our afternoon sorting and putting away the clothes, as well as choosing certain outfits to save back for their Fairytale Ball. These were some of the cutest baby clothes I had ever seen in my life! After we finished putting away the donations, we went outside to play with the two kids who had not left yet. It was pretty sad when we had to leave Ark. None of us wanted to go. We all loved this organization so much and were very inspired by being able to spend our week making an impact at their organization. It began to feel like our home away from home, right before we had to depart.
When we got back to our hotel, we relaxed for just a bit and then headed out for a hockey game. The director was kind enough to give us some free tickets. For most of us, this was our first hockey game. It was really enjoyable and exciting. After the hockey game, we got back to our hotel to pack and prepare to head back home.
The next day we woke up about 7:30 am to eat breakfast and then make our way back to Kansas. The car ride home was pretty fun, as we sang songs and reminisced on the amazing week we had. It was sad having to say goodbye to all of these amazing women. I had the best time of my life at Ark Crisis spending my week with four amazing girls. Being able to see those children smiling and being carefree really made my heart warm. This was definitely a trip that I will cherish for the rest of my life, and there is not any other way that I would have wanted to spend my spring break of 2015.
Blog One: Monday
ReplyDeleteMy first day at AIDS Foundation Houston was thrilling! I was so excited to finally see the foundation and to experience what goes on there on a daily basis. After so many weeks of anticipation, it was so exhilarating to finally really be there. The building was structured much like a doctor’s office, with narrow hallways and many small rooms that were off from the corridors such as offices and meeting rooms. We were met by the volunteer coordinator, Niki, who gave us a brief overview of what AFH is all about. We learned that their biggest ideology is “housing is healthcare.”
Niki told us about the multitude of services AFH provides for their clients, such as housing, nutrition, support groups, and help with being linked-in to care with medical professionals in the area. We did some odd tasks around the foundation such as writing thank you notes and organizing folders. The thank you notes, Niki explained, were a nice thing to send to people who had donated money to the organization. Not only was it a nice gesture, but it helped keep the foundation in the minds of people who had recently participated in a fundraising walk and encouraged more donations in the future. We also helped Crystal make awards for people who are currently incarcerated if they completed “Wall Talk,” a program that educates inmates about HIV/AIDS.
At the end of the day, we helped Kevin, who coordinates the mobile community outreach program. We helped him by making the folders people fill out before being tested for HIV in their mobile testing center, which is a large van that they can bring to places in the metropolitan area to better reach their target populations. Bringing testing to the people is much easier and much more effective than bringing the people to the testing, and testing and knowing your status is the first step in preventing the spread of STIs and HIV.
Overall, my first day was wonderful. I learned so much, even in one day! I am so excited to see what the rest of the week has in store!
Blog Two: Tuesday
ReplyDeleteMy second day working with AFH was definitely more hands-on, which I really enjoyed. We went to Friendly Haven, which is AFH’s housing facility for those of their clients who need it. Because their ideology is “housing is healthcare,” it is truly important that they provide a clean, safe, and comfortable environment for people living with HIV and for their families. The people residing at Friendly Haven would not otherwise have housing. Without housing, how can we expect them to be receiving the medical care they need?
Seeing Friendly Haven was such an amazing experience. The apartments were really nice, and it was cool to see that it was fenced off, giving it a private, tightly knit feeling. The sense of community within it was astounding. We arrived at 10 AM and started painting a large deck outside of the main office. As we painted, kids ages five to fifteen were playing on a small basketball court right by us. We struck up friendly conversation about basketball, which of course led to talk about the upcoming March Madness tournament and the Jayhawks. Seeing the wide age range of all the children playing together was really interesting. I kept thinking that it was so nice that even though they were there for an overall pretty horrible reason, it was so nice that they had this kind of community for support. AFH does more than provide housing through Friendly Haven; they create a large family that can truly understand one another, because they’re all going through the same thing.
We finished painting the patio in just a little over five hours, and it looked wonderful. I left Friendly Haven this afternoon with a little paint in my hair and a little more of a smile on my face knowing that I was working for a truly wonderful organization this break.
Blog Three: Wednesday
ReplyDeleteToday was really tough. We were supposed to do more maintenance work outside at Friendly Haven, but it was pouring outside. Our volunteering for the day was cancelled, but we as a team were a little uncomfortable with the idea of doing nothing for the day. We contacted Niki, our volunteer coordinator at the foundation, and she found a project for us to do. The maintenance worker at Friendly Haven, Fred, wanted us to help him with repainting an apartment. We headed over to Friendly Haven and were handed some brushes and a big bucket of paint, but nothing could have prepared us for the room we walked into.
The first thing that hit us was the foul stench of the apartment. Then, looking around, we could see the gunk on the walls, the dirt and other debris caked along the trimming where the walls and floor met, and the muck that was stuck to the floor where the couch had been. On the floor were dead cockroaches, there was tobacco that had be taken out of the paper it was rolled in for cigarettes, and most heartbreakingly, a child’s scribbles along the wall. This was the most squalid living conditions I had ever seen first hand. This is what poverty looked like. No sugar coating.
My first instinct was to ask for bleach. We couldn’t just paint over whatever disgusting residue was on the walls. The next person to move in to this apartment would be affected with HIV/AIDS, which already gives them a weakened immune system. Painting over wouldn’t only be lying, but also putting their health in danger. We scrubbed the walls and the floor with a concentrated bleach solution to the best of our abilities to at least sanitize, and then we painted over the walls. It was really emotionally tough to see how some people in poverty actually live this way, especially knowing there was a child there.
After we finished painting the room, we felt we had done the right thing, but we all left with heavy hearts. We’d all grown up very sheltered from this kind of condition, and seeing it first hand was so strikingly sad. It’s stuck with us all day.
Day Four: Thursday
ReplyDeleteToday was a lot of fun, which we really needed to bring our morale back up from yesterday. We met with Angel, the kid coordinator at Friendly Haven, to take the kids to the park. We loaded up the van with footballs, kickballs, bubbles, jump ropes, and more and headed over to have our play day with the kids of Friendly Haven. Around twenty kids were there in all, ranging between three and fifteen years old. Leah and Chance kicked off the park day with a game of flag football, which I opted out of to blow bubbles with the younger girls and to play on the monkey bars with the littlest guy there. I’m definitely a kid at heart. I learned all of their names fairly quickly and in no time we were good pals. The kids were all having fun climbing trees, blowing bubbles, jumping rope, and playing with their friends.
After flag football, we divided into two teams for kickball: Team Jayhawk and Team Beyoncé. It was an evenly matched game and it got really intense! The kids were all amazingly good sports, cheering each other on and congratulating each other on good plays. Leah and I taught our team, Team Jayhawk, some fun KU chants and we pumped them up to get their spirit going. We all had such a blast and we wished it didn’t have to end! If there’s something I would like to see go differently next year for this site, it would be to spend more time with the kids. After a short few hours with the kids, it was time for us to go to our next volunteer site, and they were sad we weren’t going to the Boys and Girls Club with them. After bonding in such a short amount of time, we were sad to go. We all had a blast.
Later on in the evening, we joined Shaquoiya and Kevin in Montrose for community outreach. We went to bars and handed out condoms to promote safe sex and told people about the mobile testing a few blocks away. I had a wonderful time perusing the neighborhood and seeing the community AFH directly benefits. Shequoiya was so knowledgeable about STI and HIV prevention, as well as about education in the community. I learned so much, we helped spread awareness, and I had a great time while doing it!
Blog Five: Friday
ReplyDeleteWow, it’s so strange to think that today was really our last day with the foundation. This week flew by far too quickly! We arrived at the foundation for lunch, which Niki sweetly provided for us as a thank you. We watched an hour long documentary about the growing problem of HIV/AIDS in the South and the social issues that arise along with the number of those infected. It was a really great documentary because it showed, on a very personal level, what it was like to live in the South today with HIV/AIDS, and the social, economic, and medical problems that came with it. After watching the film, we had a short Q&A with members of the foundation where we talked about everything from what each person specifically does for the organization to how public school’s sex education is affecting the rate of HIV transmission. The people at the foundation are truly such patrons on the topic and know so much. I feel really lucky to have met them and had the opportunity to speak with them about these issues. I want to be an infectious disease doctor, and many of my patients will be infected with HIV. It’s so important to know more than just the medical side of it. To truly understand what my patients are living with, I need to know the social aspects of it, too, such as stigma and poverty.
Next, we finished off our volunteering by writing more thank you notes, organizing papers, and creating packs of business cards for the organization. Although it doesn’t seem like much, we saved them hours of work and they were able to get so much more done for the organization during that time because of it. Every little bit helps.
Leaving AFH today was very bittersweet. I feel as though I was just beginning to really connect with the organization on a deeper level, and now it’s over. But I have gained so much from this opportunity. I learned so much about a population I knew so little about to begin with, and I was able to help an organization that is doing so much good for them. Between thank yous, playing with kids affected by HIV, and handing out condoms to prevent new infections, I fell in love with this organization. One day, I hope we can get to zero.