Hello Summit! Spring is in the air, and I am so ready for summer to be here. Only one month of school left! Woohoo! That does also mean that we will soon have to move out of Summit, which is sad, because I love our apartment and my roomies. All good things have to come to an end at some point though.
Things at Lighthouse have been going really well this semester. In my opinion, the agency has appreciated our help a lot more this semester than last semester. During the fall semester, I felt like they were so busy getting ready for the location change, that they never really had time to plan work for us. This led to a lot of awkward moments when we didn't really know what was expected of us or how to best help out. This spring semester, however, it has been much easier to make a difference. A lot of progress has been made towards identifying the roles we play at Lighthouse and in feeling like we are making more of a difference. In fall semester, they often wouldn't have things planned for us to do and would just assign us somewhere at the spur of the moment. This semester, Dolly always has a task set aside for me to do, which helps me know what they expect of me. I view this as a major accomplishment in communication between us and Lighthouse.
This past month, the greatest experience for me at the agency was, oddly enough, filing papers in the children's family binders. I know this sounds like a really boring task, and it wasn't super exciting, but it did open my eyes to the work Lighthouse does. While I was filing, I noticed the number of family binders that were on the shelf. All of the children aren't present in the center everyday, so it's hard to gauge the number of kids at Lighthouse. By seeing the number of binders, I got a better idea of just how many kids Lighthouse helps. I realized that the majority of these families would have a much more difficult time finding quality childcare if it wasn't for the services Lighthouse provides. This experience made me really proud to be helping out at an organization that helps so many others.
The greatest challenge at the agency for me this month was volunteering in the Purple Preschool Room. I only helped out in there for an hour one day, but while I was in there, utter chaos ensued. One of the girls started throwing a hardcore temper tantrum complete with hitting the classroom teacher and ear-splitting screams. This all occurred right before nap time, so I was faced with the task of trying to get all of the other kids on their cots. Since there was so much noise, the kids didn't want to go to sleep or lay down, so it was a somewhat frustrating experience for me. It was even harder since I didn't know any of the children or the teacher.
On Wednesday of next week, April 20, from 3-4, we will be putting on an Easter egg hunt at Lighthouse. :) We are all really excited about this event, and I absolutely love Easter, so it should be a great time. Next Monday night, we are going shopping for the eggs and some kind of healthy treat or prize to put inside them, since many parents at Lighthouse are health-conscious. On Wednesday, we are going to go in early to hide all of the eggs on the playgrounds. Hopefully this is a fun event for the kids, and hopefully it goes smoothly! After the preparation for the event and the actual hunt, I will only have a couple more volunteer hours left at Lighthouse, so those will go by very quickly.
That's all for now, but I will see everyone at class on Friday! Happy Spring! :)
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