Week 3 (6/24-6/30):

This week was exhausting but camp is tomorrow wooooo! So pretty much this entire week I drove kids to different houses including mine to do yard work and miscellaneous jobs to raise as much money as possibly for Young Life Camp. The camp costs kids $600, which is a crazy high amount for a week of camp but God provided. I had one kid start fundraising with me this week and raised $550 dollars, that’s amazing! Along with others making a ton of money for camp as well. I’m pretty sure I was with kids everyday from around 9 to at least 2 or 3. Lots of time with them… but the best part about when we did yard work/fundraising, it gave me great opportunities to just talk with the kids and gain a little bit of trust from them. Making them feel more comfortable at camp when we go. Camp tomorrow!!

Week 2 (6/17-6/23):

With two weeks left before camp my main focus really should have been on figuring how much kids had left to pay and helped them fundraise as much as possible. But this week I pretty much just hung out with kid’s everyday. We went to see the movie Brave that was surprisingly in my opinion pretty good. I also hosted a game night at my house with kids and introduced them to the game Munchkins (which is possibly the best board game ever created FYI) and we played for almost 3 hours. I have a xbox kinect so kids love coming over and playing sports and dancing games. Overall the week was exhausting for me being with kids 24/7 but I wouldn’t trade it for anything I love being a Young Life leader!

Week 1 (All summer beforehand):

So even though we have to do blogs for 7 weeks I’m condensing everything before this week into it as well. Because I’m staying in DeLand all summer and doing Young Life stuff all summer. Major highlight I went to the high school the last week they had school luckily missed the very last day as they had a food fight and I would have had no idea what to do (join in or be the parental figure). I picked up some kids for a lock-in at the YL and my car died going up the hill on Pennsylvania right before Clara. So three of my YL kids and myself had to push my car uphill for about a mile or so to the YL house. I was without a car for about a month, which sucked trying to do contact work with kids. Other then that just got in the swing of things balancing two jobs on top of YL stuff but in the end I just lift it up to God cause I wouldn’t be able to do it without him. 

A Pollock Lesson (week 3)

At Fox Point we introduced our first official class by giving a Jackson Pollock lesson! We allowed the kids to completely be free with the paint by splattering it on their papers. We also gave them a small lesson about the famous artist. It was great, the younger kids seems a lot more engaged the older ones but it was a successful day nonetheless! 

Since we have a less structured program at Wanskuck we decided to do a bigger project with the kids! We spread a paper on the floor and had the kids splatter paint on it! It was awesome to witness their creativity and artistic freedom. It was a big collaboration project and they were very proud of it. 

This is a photo of Makayla, one of my favorite students at Wanskuck, she's a sweet heart and we love hanging out! She's very giggly too

I wanted to share one of my favorite coffee shops in Providence, it's called "Blue State Coffee" I arrive about an hour before going to work just so I can have breakfast here. It's delicious and all the food is organic and locally grown

Another awesome thing I got to do here was attend my first baseball game. It was a pawsox game and I'll be honest and say it was a little long and boring but it was still exciting to be part of such an Northern "New England" culture! 

Darina-7

            Unfortunately, I did not get to complete the distribution partner outreach project that I’ve been working on; however, I did leave my boss with enough and am sure that the organization will soon establish a partnership with some of the churches I’ve contacted. 

During my last two weeks in DC, I got the opportunity to be involved with Beacon House Summer program. Beacon House is “a non-profit, community based organization that provides tutoring, mentoring, cultural, athletic, recreational and nutritional programs to at-risk children, ages 5-18.” I worked in a classroom of children that were about 9 years old. My first day felt very awkward (as I always do around children). I hung back a lot of the time and really had a difficult time approaching the kids as they engaged in computer games and Lego-building. By the third visit I was familiar with most of the kids and did not feel as stiff and uncomfortable. A very shy girl, Kayla, and a rather outgoing boy Michael became particularly fond of me and would always ask to be my partners when we went on field trips or to the park (we have a buddy system that keeps the kids together when they walk). Something that was new to me is seeing the kids are like one big family—well some of them are actually cousins but that’s not what I mean when I say this. They sometimes argue and they sometimes fight, but they all know where the other lives and are always cracking jokes and inviting each other to play. Such a happy and carefree community which makes me want to be a kid again.

Courtney- Week 7

So much going on. I have a bunch of pots in a bunch of different fires. All's quiet on the summer camp front, orientation is quickly coming together, and I have two amazing mentees. 

Orientation:
Welcome and info emails have gone out to our 25 incoming Bonners! Welcome bags are assembled, the booklet is slowly (and I mean very slowly) coming together, and most of the guest speakers have been booked! We are eagerly awaiting their arrival come August 15th!

Mentor:
First mentee- We went downtown to the new frozen yogurt place. It was fantastic. I am no stranger to the self-serve fro yo joints but this one is a bit expensive at .46 cents an ounce. My sweet mentee wanted to try ALL THE FLAVORS and suddenly her cup was filled with fro yo and toppings... it all totaled out to about $9 just for her snack. Awesome time though and she really enjoyed it so that's all that matters. I set us up an appointment to go horse back riding on the 11th before school starts up and we're going to see The Dark Knight Rises on Friday.  I am going to have to take some special classes to learn how to work with her but I know how much she loves having a mentor so I'm willing to do it. Also, the home says that she asks about me everyday and talks about her "best friend Courtney".

Second mentee- I picked her up and we went school shopping one day. As she's getting in the car, she told me that her cousin was really jealous that I was picking her up. We decided to do our school shopping, go home and pack up her goodies then get her cousin and go to the baseball game. We spent a lot of money school shopping... but she has everything she needs and a brand new backpack! I have never seen a child so excited over a backpack. Her cousin was very quiet, but he was really happy to be included and going to a game. The Suns lost :( but we had an awesome time!

That's about it here. I'm done with my hours! I will update about the end to this week on Friday :)

So we MET (2nd and 3rd week)

During our second week we were asked to volunteer at The Met school, a magnet school. Every year they have a summer camp so we were asked to Mentor 6 year-olds, and boy did I get attached! We spent every single day from 9 am -4 pm with the same group of kids. The theme for the camp were species in danger, one of the days we learned about siberian tigers so we made tiger masks and during recess we all ran around pretending to be tigers! It was fun and exciting to feel like a kid again!

Above, is a photo of some of my favorite girls. I was very very close to the one to my left and she called me Miss Jelly :) hahaha! Unfortunately our time with the kids was only for a week so it was sad to leave them, but we had to head back to Fox Point and begin at Wanskuck

In the beginning of my time here I was determined to work on art, so I bought 9 small canvases to continue my fetus series. I bought printed fabric from a thrift store and stretched the canvases with the fabric. And above is the result!  

I also found out through a friend from CityArts that RISD has a Nature Lab,  where they have dissected animals which is now one of my favorite places! One of the first weekends I went and pretended to be a RISD student and snuck into the lab and spent about 5 hours just sketching these fetuses. 

This image above captivated me the most, the fetus was in such position that it made me cringe and slightly sigh. I spent a lot of time with it. 

This is one of the sketches that I did. I wanted to share of this with you guys since this project alone takes up a lot of my time here besides the teaching part!