Journey to the Center of the YMCA

When a Community Partner requests a site visit, we usually don’t quite know what to expect.  On top of that, November 1^st was a Saturday and I was fully expecting to be going on a site visit to the Wang YMCA of Chinatown alone because of that. However, it seems that some other people at Northeastern were fully aware of the kind of visit this was going to be. I ended up being part of a group consisting of Professor Julie Miller, S-L co-op Barak Soreff, and Service-Learning Teaching Assistant Jennifer Hum.  Northeastern student, former S-L student and Service-Learning Teaching Assistant, and YMCA volunteer Nathan Hahn was nice enough to show us the program, and took us to see students serving in their classrooms.

Angela Tang, the student supervisor for the site, popped her head in a couple times to answer questions and make sure we had access to everything we needed.  She even pulled a couple volunteers away from their conversation groups so that I could talk to them face to face about their service experience.  The resounding consensus was that the service was going very well, and the students felt like they were making a difference.  I’m inclined to agree with them, as I personally have not seen students with the kind of connection to their mentees that they had.  It was instantly obvious when I entered the room that the kids being tutored here were extremely warm and friendly with their tutors.

The students at the Wang YMCA are almost entirely Chinese immigrants with limited English proficiency.   Most of them came from China within the past year, and as such have a very hard time in school.  Nathan had us flip their experience around, and imagine taking science classes in Chinese after six months to a year of taking Chinese lessons.  That is the kind of experience that is hard to imagine doing as an adult, but it would be flat out daunting as a young child.  Their tutors at the YMCA sit in the classroom with them for two hours every Saturday, helping them with homework and reading stories alongside them.  At the end of the session, all of the students come together to read a story out loud, which helps them with comprehension as well as making them more comfortable with speaking in English.  The amazing thing about this program, apart from its successes (notably, 1 student recently went to Boston Latin Academy, 5 more went to John D. O’Bryant High School) is that it is entirely spread by word of mouth.  There is no advertising aside from kids and parents who are already involved in the program spreading it to their friends and family. Despite this there are currently 3 classrooms being used to house the program, and it is still growing.

After we had been shown around each of the classrooms, Angela took us all out for Dim Sum.  It was both delicious and plentiful, and once we had finished Angela would not let us leave without taking home leftovers from at least one dish. During the meal, I got a chance to talk to her about her involvement in the program.  I was extremely impressed by her dedication to the students.  She seemed bolstered by their successes, and genuinely worried about their futures.  When queried about the program overall, she said, “We have one purpose, we give them a chance.”  She also had a lot to say about the efficacy of the program.  The defining factor, it seems, is the kind of time commitment that she believes in.  She encourages programs to foster deep relationships between their students and mentors.  Many of her mentors have been with students for more than one semester and she swears by that.  It allows the students to take time to open up, and when they are comfortable with their tutors they are much more likely to actually focus on their learning.  It is difficult to fully capture the drive that I saw in Angela and Nathan in writing, but suffice it to say that they are passionate and affectionate individuals, and are running a fantastic program. 

                                                                                                            By: Dan McKenna

Student Submission: United South End Settlements Children's Art Centre

As a senior in Human Services in the Child Intervention and Treatment course, being a service-learning student at United South End Settlements (USES) has been a wonderful learning experience. USES is a non-profit organization in the South End of Boston that is “building strong communities by improving education, health, safety, and security of low-income individuals and families in Boston”(http://www.uses.org/). I work in the Children’s Art Centre, which is a weekly one hour art exploration class that promotes early literacy and language acquisition.  The goals are to foster community interaction, self-expression, and the development of skills through hands-on arts education for children.

My role as a service-learning student at USES is to be an activity assistant to the Art Centre’s Coordinator and the Preschool Arts Enrichment Teacher, Helen Schroder, who is also a Northeastern alumnus. The class that I am working with is a group of preschoolers who range from age 3 to 4.  My basic tasks include setting up the classroom before the kids get there and cleaning up after they leave. While I am in the class, it feels as if I am just playing and doing fun art projects with the kids, but when you take a step back you can see the purpose for everything that they are doing. For example, when the kids first come in they have circle time where they have to find their name-tag and put it on a numbered list on the wall, promoting name and letter recognition.  Every session they always have access to clay, art journals, and painting, which helps develop their fine motor skills. This, and all of the other activities they do in art class, teaches them how to negotiate large and small group work which develops their social and emotional skills.   

The work that Helen does at the Children’s Art Centre is beyond amazing and inspiring.  She not only has incredible passion for what she does with the children, but provides remarkable support for the service-learning students that she hosts. First, the activities and curriculum that Helen has created for these children has so many specific learning goals, which will ultimately better prepare them for kindergarten, and teach them important life skills. Every activity that the children do has been thought out to increase learning opportunities for the children, which she has also been able to make fun and interesting for them. Helen is not only helping making these children’s lives better, but in the long run, is helping the community as well.

As one of her service-learning students, she is constantly checking in with me to make sure that I am actually learning and getting something out of this experience.  Anytime I have had a question, or needed help with the children or anything else, she took the time to sit down and talk one on one with me.  For example, in the beginning I had a hard time knowing when to say to say no to the students, or how to break up conflicts between them.  Helen has been so approachable that I was able to talk to her about it and she gave me advice and let me take on a bigger authority role, which let me build my own leadership skills. Furthermore, she wanted to be able to give her service-learning students the best learning experience she could that she went as far as to get our class syllabus so she could cater to our learning goals in class. 

Working at a non-profit, let alone at one with limited resources can be a tough job, but Helen seems to find a way to still be amazing at it.  While not having the ability to hire more people can be looked at as a limitation, Helen has the skills to use the resources that she has been given and turn it into a positive.  She is not only getting extra help for the class, but she is providing an unbelievable learning experience and community understanding for students.  

                                                                                                  By Anna Berkowitz

Building Community at Boston Building Resources

October 29, 2013 was one of the first truly cold days of the fall.  Naturally, it was also the day that a few of us in the Center of Community Service decided to walk to Mission Hill for a site visit.  Despite the cold, the trip was very productive and Hilary Sullivan, Hannah Page, and I were all extremely happy with what we saw.   Boston Building Resources (BBR) is an unassuming building on Terrace Street, right on the border between Roxbury and Mission Hill.  Bright orange signs line the building, advertising the new and used home improvement items that fill the warehouse.  Paul Kiefer manages a number of Northeastern University volunteers inside, and was nice enough to show the three of us around. 

As we walked toward the building that houses the non-profit side of Boston Building Resources, Paul explained the mission and background of the organization.  The Reuse Center takes in new and used materials and sells them back to the community.  However, what makes the center different from any second hand facility is their Plus membership.  Charitable organizations and community members who meet certain income guidelines pay a discounted price on all Reuse Center merchandise.  This allows for the community to afford home improvements, and there are workshops every few days to help spread the knowledge and skills necessary to make use of the building materials.  Paul held open the door to the shop and explained that people who do not qualify to be a Plus member can still shop and attend the workshops for a slightly higher price, and any profit made is put back into the organization.

We followed him inside, and immediately upon entering, we were greeted by student volunteers.  There are seventeen volunteers from the Civic Engagement Program who work in the shop, organizing items on shelves and emptying trucks of donated materials.  It is hard to say how many of those students were there while we were, because people were working or shopping in every available nook and cranny.  It seemed like we couldn’t turn a corner without having to excuse ourselves or step aside for somebody. However, a bustling environment is exactly what you want to see at a place like BBR.  Since the inventory is provided by charitable donations from around Boston, a constant stream of incoming trucks ensures that there is a wide selection on the floor for customers to look through.  This aspect of the non-profit is where students from the Service-Learning program are currently working.  There are teams of Engineering Design students who are working to help improve the inventory system that is currently in place.

Currently, all items brought into the shop are dropped off in a large open room on the side of the building.  These go through an inventory desk, where they are put into a computer system and marked with a price.  After that it’s on to the shop floor so that the drop off room can be cleared for the next delivery.  Unfortunately, as their volume of donations grows, this system is becoming less and less effective.  More deliveries means there is less time to enter everything in the system, and some items are forced onto the shop floor without a price tag.  More challenging still for Paul is that trucks are sometimes arriving to a full inventory room and are being forced to unload in the new merchandise directly into the shop.  Ideally, service-learning students will the able to propose various solutions to create a more efficient system by the end of this semester in order to help this important piece of the community grow and flourish.

              

        After our tour of the facility, we stayed for a little while to chat with Paul.  I was struck by how he handled the huge number of questions and comments people shouted to him in the short time that we stood and spoke.  I am very familiar with working in a non-profit, and from what I've seen, it seems that there is a constant buzz of updates and questions that comes along with a management role.  Paul seemed completely on top of everything that came his way, and seamlessly transitioned between chatting with us to assigning tasks to volunteers and answering questions from staff.    With any luck, and help from people like Paul, Boston Building Resources will be a growing part of the Boston community for an extremely long time.

To find outmore about workshops, membership, or to make a donation please visit: http://www.bostonbuildingresources.com/

                                                                                        By Daniel McKenna