Hey guys! It's Jessica:
I had my first day at the Lighthouse on Monday. I really like working with Dollie, the assistant manager (not sure of her exact title, but basically the boss of us!). She is very nice and super organized, which is mostly what we have been helping her with all week. We are trying to organize more folders for her and making copies of things. Next week we will most likely start working with the kids. I'm really excited about that. I have been assigned to the infant room! I love babies! So I think that will be fun! They have 3 or 4 babies right now I think... at least she said they have 3 new ones. But anyway it will be fun. I loved my experience on Monday. It was a very relaxed and positive atmosphere. They're all so nice and you can tell they love the kids they work with. Dollie is so excited to work with us. She said she is so thankful for us working there right now, I guess it has been pretty hectic with them moving in a few months. They will get a new location in the beginning of January, so thats cool!
As the other girls have said, we are having the Fall festival here next week! So it should be fun! Hope the kids enjoy it :)
Alrighty, I will keep you guys posted on the next month at Lighthouse.
-Jessica
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Hey everyone!! I hope everyone's projects are going well! We have had some great progress on ours. Our biggest plan in the works right now is our fall festival. It is going to take place on November 6th from 2-4 in the basketball practice gym. We are planning different booths and games with the help of Lighthouse and Chase bank. Some of the games we are planning include a cake walk, for which we are going to make cupcakes and cookies, pin the tail on the turkey, face painting, pumpkin decorating, and other fun activities. We have also decided to have some crafts that the parents and children can do together.
The aim for the festival is to get the families from Lighthouse meet each other, and interact with each other more. We hope that in doing this they are able to build a support group for each other. At the moment most of these families have no support group and so if a child gets sick or there is an emergency, they have to miss a day of work which just sends them back into the bad financial situation they are trying to get out of. By having a support group, hopefully the parents could find someone to watch their child and allow them to be at work more consistently. Another goal of the festival is getting the parents more involved with their children. Building a strong bond between the family members is something most of these families need help with. By interacting with the children Lighthouse hopes the families will have a positive experience in this sense.
Planning this fall festival has been an interesting experience for me because growing up, I was never in the situations many of these families find themselves in. I would never have thought about the issues that come from not having a circle of friends or family to help give support in tough times. Seeing how these families are struggling has put things into perspective for me. I really hope that the fall festival is successful in this respect. Lighthouse does such a great job at providing instrumental lessons to assist these families in becoming more self sufficient, and I think that this fall festival could be another one of the these lessons.
I go to volunteer at the actual Lighthouse center tomorrow, and I am so excited about finally getting started.
See you tomorrow!
Tiffany
The aim for the festival is to get the families from Lighthouse meet each other, and interact with each other more. We hope that in doing this they are able to build a support group for each other. At the moment most of these families have no support group and so if a child gets sick or there is an emergency, they have to miss a day of work which just sends them back into the bad financial situation they are trying to get out of. By having a support group, hopefully the parents could find someone to watch their child and allow them to be at work more consistently. Another goal of the festival is getting the parents more involved with their children. Building a strong bond between the family members is something most of these families need help with. By interacting with the children Lighthouse hopes the families will have a positive experience in this sense.
Planning this fall festival has been an interesting experience for me because growing up, I was never in the situations many of these families find themselves in. I would never have thought about the issues that come from not having a circle of friends or family to help give support in tough times. Seeing how these families are struggling has put things into perspective for me. I really hope that the fall festival is successful in this respect. Lighthouse does such a great job at providing instrumental lessons to assist these families in becoming more self sufficient, and I think that this fall festival could be another one of the these lessons.
I go to volunteer at the actual Lighthouse center tomorrow, and I am so excited about finally getting started.
See you tomorrow!
Tiffany
Members of the Beacon Project = Future Professional Organizers
Hey hey everybody! I just got back from volunteering at the Lighthouse this morning, and the two hours I spent there seemed to fly by. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to spend any time with the kids today, because our supervisor, Dollie, needed some major organizational backup. Due to recent staff changes, the records and files of Lighthouse are in disarray, so Dollie has been desperately trying to get everything organized. This would be a huge job for just one person, so she enlisted the help of the Beacon Project this week as her organizational task-force. Lighthouse is moving to a new facility over Christmas break, because they are way too cramped in their current quarters. They are moving to a Baptist church downtown and will have a plethora of space there, something they are ecstatic about. Since they are expanding so much, they will be hiring additional employees. So, today I spent the majority of my time today making copies of the Lighthouse Staff Handbook to put in folders to give to the new employees. I also continued organizing their overflowing resource room. When people say things have to get worse before they get better, they are definitely telling the truth. As I tried to organize more, the room seemed to get messier and messier. Hopefully, we’ll be able to see some progress being made soon and then move on to working with the kids!
As I spend more time at Lighthouse, I realize just how great of a thing it is that they are doing. They allow for the parents of these children to have free child care, so they can hold steady jobs and get back on their feet again. I love the atmosphere of Lighthouse, because it is so full of energy and happiness. All of the staff that I have come in contact with are such nice people. They truly care about the children and seem to really enjoy their jobs. They realize the importance of the services they are providing, and since it is a Christian organization, their faith-based attitudes are very uplifting.
Fall Festival planning is going really well. We had to change dates, because Lighthouse had a conflict, but the official date for the Lighthouse Fall Festival is November 6th from 2-4 p.m. If anyone wants to come by and help or just check it out, it’s in the basketball practice gym at Drury. We are going to have ten booths for the kids and their families to rotate through, including a cake-walk, pumpkin painting, fall crafts, pin the feathers on the turkey, and face-painting. We’ve been coordinating with the Lighthouse family event coordinator, Brandon, to make sure we know who is responsible for what and what we need to do before November 6th to be ready. It will be a really good opportunity for Lighthouse families to meet and talk to each other, and I know it will be a blast for the kids too.
I hope we see everyone at the pumpkin painting social tonight!!! Be sure to bring your artistic talent!
~Molly
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
First Day on the Job
Hello everybody!
Yesterday I went to Lighthouse for my first day of volunteering! And as you may think I got to spend time with the kids, that wasn't so much the case. As I only have time to volunteer at a certain hour I get to come when all the little kiddies are taking a nap. They are so precious! Until they wake up...Just kidding! But, I spent my time in the resource room organizing! Much, much fun.
The Lighthouse is moving onto new headquarters over Holiday Break. They are going to be downtown near South Street if you know where that is. This is a wonderful opportunity for them as they are pretty cramped in the little church they are located at now. Over the summer they also had to completely reinstate new staff members, therefore they didn't have a manager for quite some time. Over this time donations were still coming in and people giving them things for the kids to play with were helping and it was all going to the same place. The resource room. As I was talking to Dollie, our volunteer go-to-gal, she was describing to me the room. She told me it was a mess, but it was nothing compared to what I was in for. My mouth literally dropped when I saw the disaster of that room. So, as I sat, flattening out posters for them to put in the classrooms my job seemed like an impossible task. And the teachers get a thirty minute time a day to work in there. That's it! I barely did anything and I was there for an hour! But, with time, and with my other roomies helping too, I know we can clean that place up. Then, maybe then, we can play with the little ones.
We also have pretty much pulled together our fall festival. It is going to be held in the practice gym at Weiser on Saturday November 6, from 2 to 4 if anyone is interested in coming and seeing for yourself what we've helped put together! It is going to be wonderful. The girls and I have come up with great ideas for games and different booths that I think the children will really enjoy. Also it will be a great opportunity to get to know them better seeing as spending time with them might be a little limited right now.
Now, onto the next activity!! Hopefully we can get together a shindig after the symphony concert in December. We're still working on that one. But it's finally good to get things moving along. I feel so good about what we are doing and I know we are making a difference in the childrens lives and in the lives of the teachers and staff just by helping out. I hope everyone else's projects are going very well!
See you all tomorrow for pumpkin painting!
Your fellow swimmer babe (teehee, thanks Hannah),
Deanna Sorenson
Yesterday I went to Lighthouse for my first day of volunteering! And as you may think I got to spend time with the kids, that wasn't so much the case. As I only have time to volunteer at a certain hour I get to come when all the little kiddies are taking a nap. They are so precious! Until they wake up...Just kidding! But, I spent my time in the resource room organizing! Much, much fun.
The Lighthouse is moving onto new headquarters over Holiday Break. They are going to be downtown near South Street if you know where that is. This is a wonderful opportunity for them as they are pretty cramped in the little church they are located at now. Over the summer they also had to completely reinstate new staff members, therefore they didn't have a manager for quite some time. Over this time donations were still coming in and people giving them things for the kids to play with were helping and it was all going to the same place. The resource room. As I was talking to Dollie, our volunteer go-to-gal, she was describing to me the room. She told me it was a mess, but it was nothing compared to what I was in for. My mouth literally dropped when I saw the disaster of that room. So, as I sat, flattening out posters for them to put in the classrooms my job seemed like an impossible task. And the teachers get a thirty minute time a day to work in there. That's it! I barely did anything and I was there for an hour! But, with time, and with my other roomies helping too, I know we can clean that place up. Then, maybe then, we can play with the little ones.
We also have pretty much pulled together our fall festival. It is going to be held in the practice gym at Weiser on Saturday November 6, from 2 to 4 if anyone is interested in coming and seeing for yourself what we've helped put together! It is going to be wonderful. The girls and I have come up with great ideas for games and different booths that I think the children will really enjoy. Also it will be a great opportunity to get to know them better seeing as spending time with them might be a little limited right now.
Now, onto the next activity!! Hopefully we can get together a shindig after the symphony concert in December. We're still working on that one. But it's finally good to get things moving along. I feel so good about what we are doing and I know we are making a difference in the childrens lives and in the lives of the teachers and staff just by helping out. I hope everyone else's projects are going very well!
See you all tomorrow for pumpkin painting!
Your fellow swimmer babe (teehee, thanks Hannah),
Deanna Sorenson
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