Jasmyn Alviter
June 10th, 2015
Boys and Girls’ Club of the Peninsula
Diana Ramirez
The Boys and Girls’ Club began a program the year I volunteered and gave high schoolers the opportunity to work with elementary school kids for six weeks. The Boys and Girls’ Club does this program at several school sites and mine was at Belle Haven Elementary School. Half the day was spent doing academics, such as, math, science, and reading and the second half of the day the kids got to participate electives, such as, art, outdoor activities, and cooking. The interns worked together with teachers in the morning and BGCP staff in the afternoon to help them facilitate their lessons and activities. Through this experience I gained a lot of confidence in my leadership skills. Especially since me and another intern were co-intern leaders in charge of facilitating weekly meetings for the interns and maintaining communication between the interns and the BGCP staff.
I think that often when volunteering anywhere it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that you’re doing the people, or cause, a favor by helping. And while volunteering is a genuinely good thing and something more people should be doing, going into the experience like that takes away humanity from the person or cause and I think it’s harder to connect to them or what you’re doing. I, unfortunately, found myself doing this a lot at the beginning. I’d find myself feeling bad that the kids didn’t have all the nice school supplies, amazing teachers, or small classes that Menlo did. But then, without even realizing it, in moments when I’d be having a conversation with a student, suddenly none of that was relevant anymore, they were just kids. And a lot of the kids, despite not having all the opportunities that you think would help make a great student, were as passionate as ever about learning, despite their odds.
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