Day Three

Sometimes, the largest impact comes from the place you least expect. Today, our service group was split into two different sites. One site took place at an elementary school. The service involved teaching 2nd and 1st graders about conflict resolution and emotions and body language, respectively. The exercise seemed to leave a very lasting impression on these children. They were opening up, sharing about the conflict in their lives, and sharing about emotions they were experiencing on a regular basis. Although it was only a few short hours at the school, I can say with confidence that those children had a change in attitude after the program. One team member described the children as being eager to learn about emotions in conflict resolution, in a way that seemed to give them a deeper understanding of the topics being presented.

Group 1 went to a high school to help with 9th graders to plan their future. From many of our group member standpoints, the idea of attending college was never really in question. However, many and most of these high school students faces obstacles in their student and family life that make even the idea of attending college a difficult one to keep. It was saddening to see that these factors that were out of control of the students affecting their present mood and their attitudes toward the future. What we tried to do in our 1 on 1 conversations were to use our experiences and understanding to plant the idea of college even deeper in their minds. I, Frank, think that we did today impacted the students in some way. At first, they weren't really engaged. But after some digging we found that they all had drive and passion for something that was just hidden under all the negative emotions and actions surrounding them. This is the first time the program is having volunteers come in, and we are hopeful that we are giving them hope.