The beginning of the Summit experience!!

Hey guys!! 

My name is Tiffany and as you can tell I am a member of the Beacon Project. Things have been going really well so far in our apartment! Summit is amazing. It is definitely a privilege to live here, and I hope that after all our projects this year we will have done enough to have deserved the honor. Living with other girls from the swim team also makes life so enjoyable. I think that together we are going to get some awesome things accomplished this year.

I originally started thinking about living in Summit last year, after I had visited a friend from the swim team’s apartment here. I know it sounds bad but the original reason for my motivation was maybe not the best. I saw how nice the apartments were and decided that all the extra time and effort would be worth it. I talked to Molly, Jessica, and Deanna and we decided we would try to get in. Once  we started thinking about everything more seriously, my cause for motivation to live in Summit changed. I began to see how rewarding it would be to actually volunteer my time towards a good cause. I have always looked at other people volunteering and respected them and everything they do, but I somehow always found an excuse about why I was too busy. I would volunteer for the odd thing here and there, but always found that I wished I could do something more. I realized that living in Summit could give me this opportunity.

Looking at the year ahead of me, I am excited for all of the possibilities that we are going to have. My group and I started to work with some ideas at the beginning of the year, and so far everything is falling into place really nicely. We have been meeting with our community advisor specifically on two main projects this semester. 

Our first project is going to be a fall festival on October 23rd. We are hoping to use one of the gyms on the Drury Campus which will allow all of Lighthouse’s 50 or so families to attend and enjoy the festival. We are hoping to provide food, crafts, and some fun booths for the kids. Our goal is to give these families time to visit with one another, building a support group for themselves in the community. We set the plans in action today with a meeting with Lighthouse to organize the details of the Fall Festival. There is still a lot to be done, but it is looking great so far!

Our next project is going to be to organize an event where the Lighthouse family members can attend the Christmas concert performed by the Springfield Symphony. The plans are still in the works for this, but I am really excited because it looks like it is going to turn out really well. 

Because I am an elementary education major I am hoping to learn a lot from this experience. I feel as though volunteering with the kids, and getting to interact with the families will teach me skills that I couldn’t learn sitting in a classroom at Drury. Through The Beacon Project I hope to gain knowledge that will help me in my field one day to be a more effective teacher.

-Tiffany