Day One

In our first day of service, we worked with Better Basics and The YWCA!

During our time at Better Basics, we had the opportunity to impact six of their programs in our two hours of service:

1) Birmingham Read
2) Motivators of Reading Enrichment
3) Reading Intervention
4) Ready 2 Read
5) Better Basics Summer Learning Program
6) The Hope Program

We learned that Birmingham has been working hard to reduce its illiteracy rate, and we were able to help in that effort today. We packaged books to be distributed to thousands of kids across Birmingham for Birmingham Reads Day, an event coming up on April 20th. We labeled over 1000 books that had been donated to the program. We also made awards for the Reading Achievement program to be given out to children. We learned that our service could provide a child's very first book. Every little thing counts. 😺

In the afternoon we transformed the YWCA's My Sister's Closet clothing store into a prom dress boutique for high school students who cannot afford their own prom dress to have the opportunity to get a beautiful dress of their own! We were told that we got a week's worth of work done in just under three hours, and we were happy to take the burden off of the YWCA's staff. Here is what Joe 'John' Pettey had to say about working with the YWCA: "It was great to know that were able to help provide over 1000 gorgeous prom dresses to help boost the confidence of young women all over Birmingham!"

Here's what participant Frank had to say about his experience with the overall experience. "The joy you feel while laying on the beach is different then the joy you feel while giving."

We are so excited to get to know the city of Birmingham more in our remaining days, all while embracing our volunteer spirit #gbo.