DTaylor May Project Reflection

My May Project sent me through a whirlwind of different feeling and emotions. I felt overjoyed, deeply concerned, fearful, nostalgic, and exhausted to name a few. The joy came from knowing that I was having some kind of positive impact on the lives of the kids that  I got to know throughout this past month.  The deep concern came from seeing an alarming amount of kids who are falling behind, potentially leaving them marginalized by society and unable to get ahead. The concern came from a lack of parental support for the kids that the teacher I worked with informed me of. The fear was more of an existential crisis. Sitting everyday in a 2nd grade classroom made me thinking back to my grade school days. I remember them fondly, but the fondness of those memories is always followed by the poignant thought that I’ll never be able to return to them, as well as how I would do things differently if I had the chance. It made the fact that my childhood days are no longer quite apparent to me. I’m an adult until it’s all over. Now,  the exhaustion part is tough to explain, but I’ll give it my best shot. Between running back and forth between the classroom and the copy machine (located conveniently in a different building about 60 feet and a couple flights of stairs away), giving drawn out explanations to students who are having trouble grasping a concept, breaking up scuffles, and partaking in intense games of pickup basketball, the exhaustion made its mark on me by the end of each day. I would say it was worth it.

I spent my May Project at North Side Community School, a PK-5th grade charter school located in North St. Louis in the Kingsway East neighborhood. One of the perks of this is that I had the luxury of being able to walk to and from school. This saved me a lot on gas (Hooray for sustainability). A typical day panned out like this: I would arrive at 8am and report to Mrs. McGull’s 2nd grade classroom. I would do whatever tasks she requested of me, whether it be fetching copies, grading tests, making homemade dough, among others. Sometimes, I would take the initiative of answering some of the student’s questions when they raised their hands, and I think I did a decent job. Lunch was as 11:30. My time between 12pm-5pm was spent in the gymnasium with Mr. Bailey. I would assist him throughout his sequence of classes throughout the afternoon by helping set up and run whatever sports or activity he had planned for that day. Soccer, basketball, battleball (dodgeball), and egg/spoon races were the most common.

An interesting part about my time a NSCS was being given a nickname by a lot of the kids almost immediately. They called me “Hakeem”. This nickname came from Hakeem Lyon, a fictional character from the TV show ‘Empire’ played by Bryshere Y, Gray The kids swore up and down that I resembled this guy so that’s what they decided to call me. It wasn’t too long before I would hear students shouting out “Hey Hakeem!” when they passed me by. I wasn’t too familiar with the show or anything, but I didn’t mind the nickname, even if I think I’m not all that convinced that we look alike. It came to the point where some kids thought it was my real name.

On a more serious note, some of the things I witnessed in the classroom were somewhat alarming. There were some students that couldn’t quite wrap their heads around some of the content that was being covered, while other students were able to keep up. A student that stood out to me was named Brandon. When he was called upon to answer a question, he often had a blank stare on his face, mouth agape as if he has no idea what is going on. When he did speak, he was very quiet, which came across as showing a lack of certainty. One thing he did that didn’t bode well with his teacher, and I imagine this would be the case with any teacher, was when he was given a worksheet and would fill in answers at random, leaving words misspelled when often word banks were provided in the margins of the page. I was very curious as to why some things just didn’t stick with him and why he refused to do his work correctly, even though his improvement on his tests showed that he was capable. Ms. McGull, when I spoke with her about it, stated that a big part of the issue with a lot of the students is a lack of parental guidance and support with their academics. Whenever Ms. McGull would inform a parent that their child was struggling and needed help, the parents would sometimes refuse to heed those warnings and sometimes respond in a confrontational manner, aggressively claiming that there’s nothing wrong with their child. Ms. McGull was one of a handful of African-American teachers at NSCS and the rest were white. Some were very young and fresh out of college. It was brought to my knowledge that taking a job in an inner-city school like NSCS presents these graduates with higher wages, which has an obvious appeal. The fact that some of the teachers were white presented the possibility of there being a disconnect between the students and their teachers which Ms. Mcgull clarified for me. There are a lot of things about growing up in an impoverished, inner-city, African-American household that a white person privileged enough to receive a college education just wouldn’t understand. The issue of relatability between students and teachers could, without a doubt, cause issues. I know that I, for one, am more receptive to those who have gone through similar things as I have, mainly similar struggles and shortcomings.

In areas where the parents may not be doing all that they should be, Ms. McGull make a tremendous effort to pick up the slack. It was evident that she was very passionate about her students learning and had very little tolerance for nonsense. When a student’s behavior was unruly, she would often note how those behaviors won’t fly in the context of the real world, which is what all those kids will have to face some day. There was a fair amount of tears shed in the classroom by the students, often the result of being upset or frustrated about something. When a student started to tear up because he didn’t understand a problem, Ms. McGull sternly reminded him and the rest of the class that they will never find the answers that they’re looking for by crying or throwing fits. Not only did she want the kids to learn the material, she wanted them to be more mature and rational, making them more fit to thrive in their academic and professional lives.

It wasn’t always a strict environment. During my 2nd week at NSCS, the students were taking an online standardized exam that tested their math and reading skills. They must have done a similar test at the beginning of the year, because at the end of their testing, Ms. McGull compared their new scores to their old ones. All 19 students had made significant improvements and I couldn’t have been prouder. I couldn’t help but smile as the kids came over and gave me high fives and fist bumps while eagerly telling me what scores they earned. Ms. McGull rewarded their high marks by putting together a class party where the kids all enjoyed snacks, beverages, and each other’s company.   

I found my May Project to be a very meaningful experience. Being someone who the students could talk to, crack jokes with, and look to for help was very gratifying. Some of these students I discovered were even my neighbors, and most (if not all) were St. Louis residents, meaning that in the future, the paths that they carve out for themselves in life can and will affect the community and potentially the world that we all inhabit. It is my only hope that these kids continue on the path of becoming educated and avoid the turmoil that comes with being raised in a low-income area. This project also made me very grateful that my parents, despite not having much, chose to put education first with my sisters and I by making sacrifices and finding a way to get 3 kids through private school from elementary school all the way to college. It also compels me to want to really make something of myself so that all their hard work, as well as mine, are not in vain. I did a lot of thinking and I had a fair amount of fun during my May Project, and I’m walking away from it a changed man. Thank you.

Last day :(

Last Day

It's the last day today :(. I kind of sad, kind of excited to have more free time. The end of May project really does signify the end of high school work. That's such a strange thought, one that hasn't sunk in yet, and I'm not sure if I want it to sink in.

Two horses were transported to Mizzou for euthanasia today, the incredible sweet, big teddy bear of a horse, Summit the Percheron. Summit was looking a little rough. This is one of the quarantine horses I mentioned earlier. She wasn't gaining weight as fast as the vet wanted her to, and her cataracts had gotten severely worse. Luckily though, she did live a pretty long life to age 22, which is middle-aged for a horse. It's sad to think that a large portion of her life was spent in abusive and neglectful hands. The other horse sent for euthanasia was a quarter horse named Shaw. This was very surprising as Shaw was a spirited horse who, on the outside, you would guess was perfectly find. Shaw had already gone through quarantine and was actually up for adoption. Apparently over the weekend Shaw was diagnosed with a debilitating illness and the vet urged Long Meadow to him down. Shaw played in the pasture with his friends up until the day he was diagnosed. It was incredibly surprising and so sad to see this happen. Euthanasia is a tough decision to make when you're in the position of the Long Meadow staff. Do you spend extra time, energy, and resources on a horse that has a bleak future or put those resources towards a horse that needs them to be rehabilitated or same from an abusive home? It is especially tough when the horse is like Shaw, who seems, on the outside, perfectly normal. I believe Long Meadow made the right decision, and now Mizzou students can practice an inevitable procedure for their time in vet school.

Kind of a bummer of a way to end the run, seeing some of the horses you've bonded with go, but I still had an incredibly valuable time with unforgettable memories. And after the trailer returned empty from dropping Summit and Shaw off at Mizzou, Katherine and I were tasked with cleaning it: a perfect way to end the experience. We started with cleaning the trailer and finished with cleaning the trailer.

Final update

I already talked about the roof, but I will backpedal a little and talk about the building of the walls. Each wall was basically a giant board which we put blueboard on top of. Then, we nailed more wooden boards on top of that. After it was ready, we all stood in a line and lifted the wall all the way up. Then someone came in a put in the metal braces. They are temporary post-like things that nail into the top of the wall and the floor. I'm not sure how the walls will actually be held up in the end, since these braces were still there when we built the roof. Later, someone had to go around with a level -- a metal rod with a chamber of liquid inside -- and make sure the walls were completely vertical.

I think building was the most fulfilling part of my May Project. School teaches you what you can do with your mind, but building teaches you that you can make something with your body. Sure, I've worked out before. But sports, while fun, always felt to me like a waste of energy, like a contribution to the heat death of the universe. But when I'm on the build site, I know that I'm literally making a better life for someone with my hands, and that feels amazing. Even the team building aspect rivals that of sports. This might sound cheesy, but it really doesn't matter what age or religion you are on the build site. You know that the person beside you is there for the same reason as you are -- because they care about people and community.

When I think about my time in the office, I relate to Kamau's experience a little bit. The fundraising, administrative side just isn't quite as sexy. And although I knew intellectually that I was helping out, I couldn't see the impact quite as much. There was a lot of stuff about recognizing volunteers and donors. I'm not saying they shouldn't be recognized, but I would rather volunteer myself.

Not gonna lie, I agree with Rebecca. This whole blogging thing has felt kind of force and like homework. Not sure if I've gotten much out of it, but oh well. But the experience on the whole has been positive and I'm really glad I decided to work for Habitat.

Thursday May 19th

Thursday May 19th

The day started off the same again. We helped feed and started cleaning stalls. This morning, however, they sent us up to the Menagerie barn early to get started with the pigs. The pigs were especially amicable today. Even the big black pig on the end, Patrick (a fantastic pig name), just stayed in the corner and watched us clean his stall, and he even let us pet him once we were done (only once though).

Katherine and I decided to sweep and scrub the aisle in Menagerie (which we do not normally do) just to go the extra mile. Coincidentally (we really didn't know), there was a donor tour today. Thank god we cleaned a little extra today. When we came back down from Menagerie there was a large crowd of well-dressed older couples perusing the spotless barn. Apparently this happens once every few months in oder to raise enough mulah to keep the barn running. Unfortunately, at the worst possible time, Addie and Macy, 2 normally well behaved horses, decided to get in a skirmish in their neighboring stalls. There was some loud banging as the horses hit against the stalls walls and doors. The doors freaked out a bit as the were literally right next to the fight, and all of the barn hands came running. They calmed the horses down and switched Addie to a stall across the aisle where Cinna was. Hopefully this did not affect any of the donor's charitable inclinations.

We ended the day with a free Bread Co. catered lunch provided by the donors (chocolate chip cookie included!).

Tuesday May 17th

Tuesday May 17th

The day started out like normal, Katherine and I carpooled, we helped toss hay for morning feeding, and we got started on mucking horse stalls. At 8:00 AM we helped bring in the horses who are on night turn out. Many of the night turn out horses are red stars, but most of the staff has learned to trust Katherine and I's horse experience and has been letting us handle these horses.

However, there are still a few horses we cannot handle. There is a gorgeous white horse named Yeti, with glass (white/gray/light blue) eyes that was recently gelded and is on a 30 day waiting period to allow excess testosterone to exit his system. There is another recently gelded stallion named Cash. Cash, unlike Yeti, has not mellowed since the surgery. He still exhibits combative attitude toward other males and goes for almost every mare he sees when let out. For this reason, he has been put in "solitary confinement" (in his own paddock) until the vets have a chance to look and see if they missed anything during the gelding.

Speaking of vets, when Katherine and I drove up this morning, to our surprise there actually more that 3 cars parked in the gravel parking lot. In fact, there were around 30, and a bunch of college-age people milling around talking in jeans and scrub tops. It turns out, a local vet college came to practice equine sedation and giving shots to horses. This is a win-win for Long Meadow and the College since the students are able to receive practical, in-field training and practice while Long Meadow receives free medical care for the horses like surgical procedures and vaccinations during the students' practice (usually very costly procedures).

We usually take our 10 AM break in a big conference room that overlooks the riding arena. Today, when we went upstairs with coffee and a granola bar for morning break, the vet students were observing a real gelding operation in the arena. Such a pleasant show to go with morning snack!

How we built the roof, etc.

I thought I would tell you a little more about the construction of the houses. Last Friday we were putting up the roof. Warning: this description would probably make a real construction worker sad.

They had already laid down some boards so that we could work up high. There was a net underneath us, but you could still fall off the edge of the building. Walking around was pretty tough, since space was limited and you had to be careful not to fall. It was mildly terrifying at first, but I got used to it eventually. This huge machine lifted up the triangularish roof pieces and set them near the front of the house. Then we dragged each of them down and nailed them into the boards below us. After we had that done, there was a lot of securing of things to be done. We had to nail down a bunch of metal plates with holes in them to keep things together.

On my house we had an interfaith group volunteering with us. There was this one Mormon boy who was 17. For insurance reasons he had to stay on the ground the whole day. His job ended up being fetching things for the people working on the roof. It was kind of pathetic in a funny way.

I met this guy named Yenum who goes to Principia and had to do a similar project for his school. Near the end of the day he interviewed some of the volunteers and staff who had been around for a long time. They were all so enthusiastic about using their time and their bodies to give back to people. My whole Habitat experience has been pretty awesome and inspiring, and I definitely hope to return and build some time in the future.

Yesterday was my last day and I was at the Restore. Harper called me up into her office to give me a goodie bag of Habitat schwag. Although I feel like I barely did anything for her, she was so grateful to have had me around.

Gigantic May Project Update

     So I worked at the YWCA under Ms. Amy Hunter, and helped her with some of the diversity initiatives she runs, such as witnessing whiteness, a program for white people discussing white privilege and other things that come with being white in the world we live in, so reel, a program of videos, and speakers addressing various topics of diversity, and I also helped with general updates to the YWCA website, cataloging information, and voicing my opinion in regards to certain topics.

 I am not entirely finished with my project yet. I still have some videos to finish for so reel, but so far I would describe my project as informative, but not really rewarding. I work with animals a lot which is why I decided to do something in diversity for my may project, and I did learn a fair amount about what diversity work looks like. I say my project didn't feel rewarding because sometimes it felt as though I wasn't really working at all. The day could have felt more like shadowing, or something like that. For example, my first day, I showed up to the YWCA center, and I went to a meeting Ms. Hunter had, but it turned out the meeting really didn't apply to either of us, and because of this it was just a couple of hours of my time not well spent. By the time the day ended I had been there about five hours, and really hadn't done anything. I felt bad because this was not the only day something like that happened. It happened my second day as well, and last Wednesday I went to a conference with her. I couldn't really help at all at the conference though, and ultimately just ended up watching her presentation concerning privilege defined by zip codes in Saint Louis. It was an interesting talk, but she gave it multiple times and there was honestly no point in listening to it again, so I ended up in the hallway without much to do given my lack of a laptop or anything to do other work. It’s just moments like those that made it feel as though I wasn’t actually doing anything productive with my may project.

I feel the other reason it did not feel rewarding is that the projects I do are all by myself, or without any people around. For instance, although I have talked with Ms. Hunter concerning the Witnessing Whiteness group, I have never been to a meeting concerning it because I have track practice everyday and still do. Therefore, I never actually see how the work we do applies to other people. I only see the process. With the videos, I won’t know how effective they actually turned out to be because I will be gone when they are used. And redesigning a website doesn’t seem to have much of an impact either. I guess I just expected to work with people more, rather than do work that people would eventually see.

Ms. Hunter and I did meet with some groups struggling to improve their diversity initiatives however. It was interesting, because many things I hadn’t actually thought of in regards to diversity in the workplace were brought to light, and seeing Ms. Hunter’s way of handling it gave me a better idea of what the work looked like. The main problem they had identified was getting people committed to the work they were doing in diversity. Ms. Hunter pointed out their ways of subconsciously excluding people despite the message of inclusion they were trying to emphasize, in addition to their lack of a clear goal or reason for even having the initiatives. It was brought to their attention that they seemed to solely be doing these diversity initiatives because they felt it was “the right thing to do” or because it “made them feel good,” and this was one of the main problems because they need to have a set plan and set goals so that they can work towards something, and know when they are and are not successful. She also brought up an interesting point, in that they were trying to “increase the diversity of their staff” far beyond the clientele they were serving. For example, one woman’s concern was not having enough transgender people in the staff. Even though only two percent of their clientele was transgender, and roughly one percent of their staff was. The point being that she was focused too much on doing things that made her feel good about her actions rather than things that were actually more crucial, such as the issues of race within their faculty, etc. Seeing this transaction actually helped my understanding of diversity work a ton, and that is why it is one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had so far.

In regards to the work I’ve been doing, I was mainly tasked with two so reel videos. These videos serve the purpose of starting a dialogue within whatever group wants to use it for whatever diversity work they see fit. There will be events showcasing the videos, but I believe they can be used later. This year the focus is more towards women as a whole. The two I was tasked with deal with racism in the LGBTQ community, and “Not in her name.” The first is self explanatory, but the second addresses the use of “white woman fragility” to justify racial violence, and the pushback by white women to declare an end to the using of them to justify heinous acts such as the charleston shooting, or Emmett Till. Designing these videos actually is much more difficult than I thought. Partially because want to make sure they are actually worth viewing and that they do the job they are supposed to. Mainly I read articles concerning the topics, and attempt to find videos online addressing the topic that I can weave together. They are supposed to be somewhere around 10 minutes, and especially considering my inexperience in creating videos it has not been easy.

I have also been charged with redesigning the YWCA website in regards to diversity. The website hasn’t been updated for years, so many of the things on it are outdated, and I need to find more relevant topics to add. It doesn’t help that the form I have to use for making changes is very hard to use, especially when there are as many changes as I am suggesting, which hinders the process significantly. Mainly I was told to focus on the resource section. So, I am partially just going through the resources, seeing which ones no longer apply, and deleting them, while also finding new ones. This means researching which books have been successful in the recent past, and also finding videos concerning various diversity topics, and finding some poetry addressing them too, which is honestly my favorite part because I like poetry to begin with.

I have been working from home this past week because Ms. Hunter is actually in the middle of switching jobs and working in Children’s hospital. She partially stayed an extra week just because I was supposed to work with her and she wasn’t aware of the job when we initially talked. It’s kind of unfortunate simply because I don’t work as hard from home, but it works. I can’t actually go into the YWCA really because she is the only one that does her job there. There aren’t really others in the diversity field to her extent, and that’s why I’ve just been at home finishing the projects I was given. That’s another part of why this whole experience hasn’t been all that rewarding. It’s just different compared to the volunteering I’m used to. Like at the Zoo I worked with animals and actually people, quite often, and it was very clear when you were successful educating people, and when you were actually helpful to the animals and people working there. In the Humane Society, seeing a dog get adopted was one of the best feelings given the level of celebration and what not when it happened, but that type of stuff doesn’t happen at the YWCA, because why should it? At the Humane Society, I could see the change I was making consistently, and it felt rewarding because of that. The same can’t be said of my work this May, and that is the main reason for my lack of fulfillment. Yah I might be helpful, but it doesn’t feel like my work is all that important, or impactful. Partially because I won’t get to see any impact. I know work of that kind takes time, but still there just wasn’t the same level of excitement or anything when I went there. It was more so just something I was doing instead of being at home. I enjoyed Ms. Hunter’s company, and I learned a lot from her, but the experience as a whole seems lack luster, and honestly like I don’t actually deserve to get all of my may project hours, but I also have reached a certain level of apathy where that doesn’t matter too much anymore, and I kinda just want to finish it and be done.

Final Update

The past few days in the warehouse have been a lot of sorting and counting. We counted toiletries and hygiene kits and books and stuffed animals. We also spent an afternoon rearranging one section of the warehouse to make it easier to fill orders. We haven't gone to a school in a while because the school year is ending so instead we've been inventorying.

Yesterday we went to school and collected the boxes we had put out for donations. We brought in a lot of stuffed animals and books and some school supplies.

I really enjoyed my may project. While it was a bit tedious at times (too much counting) and my hands ended up smelling like soap on multiple occasions, it was amazing to see the impact of what I was doing and how grateful the children were. The work that the Little Bit Foundation does is great and helps out the children and their families so much. I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to work with them.

Monday May 23

Have I mentioned how hilarious my supervisor at the ReStore is?

Lucy and I kept begging him to smash things. He finally let us video this.

The mulch is to make it less muddy.

Here are some pictures of last Wednesday on the build site. It was very muddy since it had rained the day before.
I was back in the office today. I get tired no matter what job I do, but it's a different kind of tired when I'm sitting around all day vs. using my body. The office makes me the bad kind of tired -- sort of agitated. I had the most boring project ever today. For all their more regular volunteers, they keep a spreadsheet of the hours they work. I had to consolidate that data for 2015 into a new spreadsheet. Let me just say, there are a lot of old white guy names at Habitat. Several hours were dedicated to tallying the hours of the 19 Bobs who had worked for Habitat during 2015.
But it's really rewarding to see how grateful my supervisor Harper is. Her face just lights up whenever I do something for her.

May Project Update #3

The last few days of my May Project at Challenger Learning Center consisted of a mix of tasks that were both familiar and completely new to me.  I started out making more kits, which although I have improved upon greatly, are still pretty repetitive.  This was the last set that needed to be done, however, so it was oddly rewarding to find them all laid out in front of me completed and finished.  One of the more unfamiliar tasks I was assigned was to catalog and organize the various sizes and lengths of PVC pipe and connectors in the storage room.  Keep in mind that, although fairly organized, the storage room consists of hallways that tight enough to hold one person at a time.  The PVC, however, was of various lengths ranging from 5 inches to 12 feet.  This took a couple of hours and a lot of balancing.

Next on my agenda was to see if it was feasible to incorporate a certain project into one of the summer camp programs.  The project itself was a kit that, once completed, would assemble into a glider made only from foam plates, a few washers, and glue/tape.  This was a pretty messy process to do the first time, but after you do it once, it becomes a lot easier to organize.  The finished product itself was actually pretty impressive, with my average throw landing around 20 feet.

My final task, although unusual, may have been the most time-consuming one I was assigned.  Recording the results of surveys given to the 5th graders that came to Challenger Learning Center.  The questions were as follows:

1. I am a boy/girl (circle one) in the ______ grade.
2. The subject I like most in school is _____.
3. The subject I like least in school is _____.
4. For my career, I would like to be ________.
5. I am very interested in science
        a) Strongly Agree   b) Agree   c) Disagree   d)Strongly Disagree
6. Describe two ways you used teamwork in your mission today.
7. Which of the following is NOT a part of a rocket?
        a) fin   b) wing   c) nosecone   d) body
8. Complete the sentence below for describing Newton's Law of Motion:
       For every action there is ______________________.


Although it seems like a fairly straightforward survey, it was actually pretty hilarious to see what some of the kids would put for their answers.  I made an Imgur album with some of my favorite responses, which you can view via this link.

However, there were a lot of responses to go through, and it did eventually begin to feel less like a fun way to spend my day and more like a chore.  There were times when I had to use more than one sheet of paper to get all the tallies for one school group.  But considering some of the other things I could have been doing, it really wasn't all that bad.

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Overall, I found my time and the Challenger Learning Center to be a very diverse and rewarding experience.  I was able to experience firsthand the effort and dedication that is put into exposing children to the limits (or lack thereof) of STEM.  But what I appreciated the most was just how much I felt at ease with the wonderful people I spent the past few weeks with.  It was easy to feel like I was working with them rather than for them, and that made my May Project much more engaging.

Friday May 20

Over the past week I have been working both in the ReStore and on the build site.

The houses sort of slope down this hill.

I'll talk a little more about the build site! The houses are sort of on one side of a cul-de-sac.

Subflooring! The blueboard is for insulation.

7 houses are currently under construction, but they are planning to have 4 more done by the end of the summer.
In this week alone, we have put up walls and the structure for a roof on 4 of the houses.
More pictures and videos to come.

Day 4

Day 4:

Katherine is back! Today we cleaned stalls again and then headed up to a new barn where they keep the adoption pigs. The barn is called "Menagerie".

THE PIGS ARE SO CUTE. I truly think pigs are some of the most underrated animals. Many of the pigs are personable with huge personalities. However many were given up by there owners due to their "unmanageable size". People pay upwards of $2000 for tea cup pigs and get scammed and stuck with pot belly pigs instead. These pigs, still just as cute, are only slightly larger. Keep in mind normal pig size is not factory pig size. So these pigs are a nice medium size and absolutely adorable.

Day 3...

Day 3:

Katherine decided not to come today in order to rest before her soccer game. Both of our backs hurt like hell: lots of heavy lifting.

There's a barn cat named Chester here. I'm learning that all of the names are very clever. All of the horses that come in without trimmed hooves are named after shoe designers, like Armani and Gucci. And a whole group of horses from Texas are named after Texan things "Tex" and "Houston" and "Austin".

Since the barn was short handed today, I got to go down and work at the quarantine stables for the first time. There are specific tools for each horse, not because they are sick, but usually because they are new and unknown, personality and ailment wise, to the staff. There is an adorable family of warmbloods down there (that make the biggest mess). It's made up of a stallion, mare, and foal. There is also another bull headed stallion down there, (soon to be gelded), a miniature named Gucci, and a massive dun Percheron who's old and currently going blind with a severe case of cataracts. The Percheron came in weighing around 900 pounds. 1000 is the average weight for a lean race horse, and 2000 is the average weight of a draft horse like a Percheron. She is currently up to 1200 pounds in 5 months, incredible progress.

Here's Day 2 journal...

Day 2:

Arrived at 7 again today. Still carpooled, still woke up very early. We went straight to mucking staples this morning. Around 10 am a tour group of home schooled families (so children of various ages and their parents) arrived for a tour of the farm. What I learned from the tour (which Katherine and I were instructed to tag along on):

The farm has 2 areas, an 'upper' level made up of 2 horse barns, 1pig/goat barn, 1 poultry barn, and 5 paddocks. The rest, and majority, of the ranch consists of multiple outdoor pastures with shelters and other paddocks varying in size as well as 2 more horse barns. This 'lower' area is the quarantine area: the space delegated for recent intake animals. Usually volunteers are restricted from this area however Linda decided tagging along with this tour group would be a good way for Katherine and I to see this area and learn some more about the whole operation.

The animals on the farm are rescued from various horrible places. Many of the animals are classified as "seizures": animals taken from an abusive of neglectful home and others are "surrenders": animals surrendered to Long Meadow by the owner due to an inability to take care of the in some capacity.

In the case of seizures, Long Meadow staff and law enforcement come in to seize the animal and then the owner faces subsequent charges. However, before the seizure takes place, the Humane Society works with the owners to try and facilitate proper care of the animals, teaching the owner about animal care and what is needed. I found this to be a very good method, leaving seizure as the last resort and worst case scenario. After a seizure, the animal is taken to the quarantine barn, animals are brought back to weight, cured of all ailments, dewormed, and gelded (if a stallion). They then begin the slow process of recovery, training, and human exposure to become adoptable.

Sometimes frustrated owners come with trailers to the stables to retrieve their animals again. They may threaten violence and compromise the safety of the animal or staff. This is rare, and we have not seen this happen in our time there.

On a very separate note...I learned today that we have an alpaca and 2 massive cows saved from the slaughterhouse.

The tour helped us understand much more about Long Meadow. The end.

ps. Sorry this is kind of bland. This feels like homework, and, maybe it is just me, but I thought school was over...

So I decided to journal....now I'm deciding to blog (essentially typing my journal into the blog). [no pictures :(...yet]

Day 1:

Katherine and I decided to carpool out to the ranch. It was a major struggle to get up before 6 am        -__-. The ranch is in very rural Missouri, a part us city slickers do not get to visit very often. Location wise, someone would really have to be searching for this place if they were to find it, much unlike the other humane society locations in Saint Louis.

We started the day with a brief session with our sponsor, Linda, to talk about rules, policies, horse safety, and the classic "we are not liable for any injuries incurred from volunteering" statement. After watching a short horse care and safety film, we went out to muck stalls, a daily activity all staff and volunteers participate in. As more advanced volunteers with a significant amount of horse experience, Katherine and I got the opportunity to help lead horses during morning turn in/out. The horses were well trained, sweet, and, for the most part, easily leadable, each with personalities of their own. Apparently this is a far cry from the creatures that came in when they were first rescued. After cleaning the stables and bringing in horses, Linda sent us down to another barn called "Playhouse" where they keep the bird rescues. There were ducks, roosters, hens, and turkeys down there. "Stray" turkeys is what they were classified as, however I suspect they are simply wild turkeys someone turned in. But the Humane Society has a policy requiring them to take in all animals brought in. Down there we cleaned the trailer before it was time to leave at 1:30 for practice.

First day: cleaning, horse care, cleaning, manual labor, and cleaning, and you know...some more cleaning

Update with even more pictures

Yesterday was pretty boring. We sorted and put away clothes that had been donated and washed. Then we put stickers in books and counted them and sorted them into levels. Then we spent the rest of the day inventorying and organizing the toiletries section of the warehouse. This part of the warehouse has dental kits and hygiene kits plus lots of extras of what goes in them. It was really disorganized. There was so much there that we didn't get anywhere near finishing.

Some of the many books in the warehouse. On the right are
some of the shelves with boxes full of books.

Today was a little more fun. We spent the morning painting the boutique room in one of the schools. The foundation's colors are purple and green so we painted the room those colors. We couldn't finish completely today because we had to wait for the paint to dry. Tomorrow a few people will go back to the school and finish painting the door frames purple. They also want all the students in the school to put their hand prints in purple on the bench so that when they come in to get their clothes they can see their hand prints. When we got back to the warehouse we finished counting and sorting the boxes of toiletries they we started the yesterday. We finally finished and took like a 5 minute break and we had 30 minutes left before it was time to leave and that's when they told us that there were like 20 more boxes of toiletries that we had to go through. So that was a fun surprise. Anyway, not too bad of a day.

When we thought we were finished sorting.
Also we found this stuffed monkey.

The boutique room we painted. We did the green and
purple and the tops of the other walls are purple too.

Update (with a picture this time!)

Today was another warehouse day. In the morning we sorted donations and then we finished the inventory that we started yesterday. Yesterday we counted everything except the casual weekend clothes and today we counted all the casual clothes. Once again they thought this task would take us a lot longer than it did so we took like an hour for lunch while they came up with something for us to do. Also our sponsor is in Europe?? Not sure why but anyway. They finally came up with something else for us to do and it was sorting more donations. That's when we made the soap tower (shown below). Anyway not the most exciting day but not too bad. We're going to schools tomorrow so I'm excited for that!

Not completely sure my day count is accurate but this is an update!

Today I was in the warehouse again working on a project with two other Burroughs students and two students from other schools. There were also some CBC guys there in the morning who have been putting stickers in books for like a week so not sure what's up with that. Anyway our sponsor wasn't there today because she had a funeral to go to but she left us with a list of things to do that she thought we wouldn't finish. We started off by filling orders from one of the schools but these were re-orders, meaning we either didn't have the specific clothing item when the orders first went out to the school or the item did not fit them. There were about 20 of these and we filled them in about 10 minutes. We then moved on to our big task for the day: inventory.
Since the school year is ending, orders don't really need to be filled anymore. Our job today was to count. Everything. Our sponsor left a packet for us that listed everything that needed to be counted and it was like 8 pages long. We started with uniform shirts which are unisex and counted the ones that were easily accessible. But that was where things got complicated. Along with the bins, the warehouse shelves were full of boxes with extras of different sizes and most of the time what was written on the outside of the box was incorrect. We had to pull the boxes off the sometimes really high shelves, count what was in them, and put it back. After we counted the uniform shirts we did boys uniform pants, girls uniform pants, mens uniform pants, womens uniform pants, shoes (boys and girls and mens and womens of all the sizes), and winter coats which had boxes all the way up to the ceiling. We were burnt out pretty quickly and this task became extremely tedious. We finished around 1 and since our sponsor had thought that that would take us more than a day she didn't have anything else planned for us to do. We were excited because we thought we could leave early but then one of the other employees grabbed us and gave us a new task. A shipment of new uniform shirts and pants had just arrived so there were about 15 boxes of clothes. They had to be counted and the tags had to be taken off and then they had to be put away. We finished that in record time and re-totaled our master inventory sheet and they were all really impressed that we had finished. This time they really didn't have anything else for us to do so we got to leave an hour and a half early.
Also there is so much dust in the warehouse that my allergies are majorly acting up so that's been a blast.

Sports

Here is just a little FYI if you are invloved in sports and have any concerns about getting all your hours in:

The following teams have advanced further in post season play, so starting today participating seniors of the below sports should receive 2 hours for each day (practice/game) until their season ends.  You only get credit for weekday practices/games, not contests that take place on the weekends. 

Track & Field
Tennis
Girls Soccer
Boys LAX
Girls LAX

The following teams are finished, so participating students will not receive extra hours.

Boys Golf

Baseball

Water Polo

Please let me know if you have any questions.

May Project Update #2

Day three of my May Project began with more sorting and filing of inventory, which I have learned to become accustomed to and I have gotten pretty good at it at this point.  Around 10 'o clock, a large group of first and second graders came for a class visit, so I helped them at each of the three stations.  Because there were so many, we opened up the "Planetarium" as the third station.  The Planetarium is an inflatable hemisphere that holds around 20 people inside.  There is a projector in the middle that displays the sky onto the sphere, providing a surprisingly immersive experience.  There is a 45 minute presentation that takes place inside that explains the stories behind some of the constellations like Orion and the Big Dipper.

After each group went through each of the stations and I had finished my lunch, my job was to prepare kits for the summer classes, which include all the things that are used for one of the projects in a bag for each kid.  It's time-consuming and a little boring, but there are worse ways to spend your time.

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My fourth day started out with an unusual task: drill a hole through the diameter of 150 tennis balls.  However, the drill press doesn't move down far enough to make the hole in one motion, so I had to make one hole on both sides.  This took about 1.5 hours, and another 10 minutes to clean up.  The remainder of the day consisted of stripping wires and making more kits.

Day 4

Yesterday was a pretty low key day in the warehouse. Some of the other volunteers and I spent the morning counting shoes. There were a lot of shoes. We then put together 26 incentive boxes that would be sent out to the schools. The incentives are things like smiley face erasers and notebooks and crayons and they're kept in a box in the schools office. The kids get to pick out a prize if they get necessary things signed by their parents or things like that. This task included climbing up to the top of this ladder that was maybe 9 or 10 or 11 ft tall and pulling large heavyish boxes off the top top shelf of the warehouse. It was a little terrifying. I almost fell twice. Anyway one we were done with that we shredded some papers and took the tags off some jeans and then spent the rest of the afternoon sorting and inventorying and putting away clothes that had been donated and washed. Super fun. 

May Project Update #1

My first day at Challenger Learning Center began with me checking in with Robert, my supervisor for the duration of my May Project.  He introduced me to a couple of people that I would be working with, and I was given my first assignment:  help direct one of the "missions" that are held for visiting school classes.  This particular mission was for the children, who are usually in 6th grade, to design and fly a rocket made from approved materials while keeping within their budget of $1,000,000 (the materials such as craft paper were priced at $150,000).  The teams started out by assigning themselves jobs and creating their "business license" which would help clarify who had which job should any conflict arise.  Then, the budget director of the team would draft up a budget for their team consisting of materials and "fuel" for the rocket (air pressure).  My job during this was to ensure that the math was correct and no one was trying to buy more supplies than they were allowed.

Soon after, the teams were able to purchase their supplies and get to work.  I was the "cashier" so to speak, so I immediately found myself swamped with children trying to grab their precious masking tape, card stock, and Elmer's Glue.  After which, I was to check in with the teams and give small hints to keep them on track.  The majority of the time I just had to tell them that the answer was in their instruction packets.  After about 45 minutes, it was time for the first test launches to begin.  The teams brought their rockets outside and, after showing the "safety coordinators" of each team how to operate the launching mechanism, we fired off the rockets one at a time.  During this time, the groups gathered data such as how well their rocket fired and how stable its flight was.

Then began the 20 minute period dedicated to repairing and improving the rockets.  This was more or less an easier time since the teams had a better understanding of how things worked at this point.  Many teams were able to make considerable improvements to their rockets, with one even going twice as far as it had originally with a very small increase in fuel and modifications to the nosecone.  Finally, the winners were announced and the kids were dismissed for their lunch.  I had forgotten mine at home, so I went out and got lunch at the local McDonalds (much to my discontent).

The second half of my day started with me updating the inventory of model rocket parts.  There isn't much to write about for this, since it was simply me emptying buckets of explosive rocket engines, counting them, writing that number on paper, and putting them back into the bucket.  The fun part came soon after, where I was given the task of helping a staff member create the model rockets to prepare for the summer camps.  I built the "Viking", the "Valkyrie", and the "Toob'Oh!".  All of which resulted in more superglue binding my hands together than I am willing to admit.  After they were finished, my day was over and I went home.

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Day two of my May Project started with me putting the finishing touches on the three rockets that I made yesterday and "customizing" them (my supervisor refuses to let us say "decorating" because, according to him, you decorate your living room and you customize your rocket).  Finally, it was time to launch them.  We went to an open field across the street and set up the launch pad in preparation for our rockets.  After calling out the kids inside so that they could watch, we shouted out a countdown and fired them off one at a time.  The grand finale was "The Decaf-inator", a special rocket that Robert had made out of coffee cups.

The Decaf-inator

After all that excitement, it was time for the kids to have lunch, so in the meantime, I cut and stripped Ethernet wires for a summer camp project.  The remainder of the day was devoted to me sorting and labeling inventory.

Hey Everyone!
Glad so many of you are having a good time on at your May Projects.
I want to remind you that pictures (and videos) are welcomed.
Make sure you publish your blog entries when you are ready, several of you have things still in draft form, which aren't published (but I can see as administrator). No worries if they really are drafts, but go ahead an Publish if they are finished.

Day 3

So today I was supposed to go to a book fair at one of the schools that Little Bit works with but they already had enough volunteers going. I spent the first half hour in the offices sorting new shoes that had just come in. I spent the rest of the morning with 3 other students and 2 employees at a school that little bit has been working with for almost 2 years. The students at this school were in pk - 3rd grade. The process of giving the students their clothes was much more organized here than it was yesterday. This school had a room that was designated as the Little Bit Boutique. They had extra clothes and shoes and socks and toothbrushes and it was set up like a store. The kids were all really sweet and absolutely loved getting their new shoes. We then went to a school that had 4th - 6th grade and gave those students their orders. This school was associated with the first one but was a little less organized. We were working out of the counselors office and it was really small but we got all the students their orders. After we got back to the Little Bit office I spent the afternoon washing stuffed animals, sorting laundry, inventorying incoming clothing and shredding papers. I left after the paper shredder overheated. Tomorrow I will be staying home and washing clothes for them instead of going into the office because they have a large group coming in and it would be too crowded.

Day 6

A lot has happened since I last checked in!
Last Friday, I had the pleasure (lol) of hanging out with a bunch of Ladue guys all day. They were supposed to be on a build site (building a house) but due to some miscommunication, they worked in the ReStore that day. The ReStore is a store with materials that people can use to fix up their houses for really cheap. They get their stuff from houses they tear down and from donations. Our supervisor at the store looked really happy to see us. But about 20 minutes in, we all up and moved to a different ReStore in Des Peres. We spent the day bagging tulips. Every year for Mother's Day, Habitat gives out tulips. I guess it's for people who can't afford to buy flowers but still want to give something to their moms.

On Saturday I got to go out to a build site! They are building 7 homes in Riverview. We worked from around 8-2:30. It was hot and sweaty, but actually really fun and rewarding. I'm considering going to do more building this summer. We were mainly putting in subflooring. I learned how to hammer a nail properly. Yay! We were also moving wood around. I went to Ted Drewes afterwards. All in all, a really good day.

Monday was more administrative work. I was writing heartfelt notes in these photobooks they give to donors. When you're writing the same message over and over for 2 hours, you really get it etched into your brain. I could repeat it really easily right now, but I won't bore you! Later, Harper put me on a research project. She wants to find out what other Habitats across the country are doing -- in the way of social media, various sub-projects of Habitat, and benefits for sponsors. It was actually pretty boring, but oh well.

Yesterday I worked in the ReStore! My supervisor, MJ, is so talkative and fun to work with. To my surprise, Lucy Summer showed up! She was a little bit useless (sorry Lucy) because of her knee. But she kept the spirits up. There was another really quiet guy from CBC there too. MJ had us sorting and moving around inventory in the store.

Here's a video of the cardboard smasher.

I hope we're not supposed to be logging our hours every day, because I haven't been doing that.

Day 2

Today was my second day at Little Bit. The morning went by really slowly and kinda sucked. I spent two and a half hours going through four large trash bags of grocery bags. These bags were a donation from the girl scouts and since they had been used for the April Showers supply drive some of them were unusable. I had to separate out the bags that could be reused for orders from the schools and the ones that were too damaged. It took forever and was extremely boring. Also by the end my fingers were grossly dirty and I found a dead beetle in one of the bags so it really wasn't the best morning. I had a lot of fun after lunch though. I got to go with another student and two of the Little Bit employees to their newest school to deliver orders to the students. This was the first time they had brought orders of clothes and shoes to the school so we had about 90 orders to hand out in less than two hours. There were 6 of us there and when the kids came in we would find their order and make sure the shoes and clothes fit because we didn't want to send them home with clothes that don't fit. The kids were so excited to get their new shoes and it was amazing to see how happy they were. A lot of the kids came in wearing shoes that had holes in them or that were clearly too small and their faces lit up when they saw their new shoes. We gave the kids the option of wearing their new shoes home or wearing the ones they came in with and every kid I helped wanted to wear their new shoes. One little boy that I was helping put on his new shoes and smiled super wide and said it felt like he was floating. It was so great to be able to give these kids something that they really needed and that they also loved. It was really hectic though because we had to get through so many kids in so little time and the room that we were in was pretty small and really hot. All in all it ended up being a really good day. I loved interacting with the kids one on one and seeing the impact of the warehouse work. Tomorrow I am going to a book fair all day so I'm looking forward to that.

My First Day

Yesterday was my first day working at the Little Bit Foundation in the city. I had a really great time. I was there with 2 other Burroughs students and together we worked on a couple different projects and did a lot of laundry. The foundation's facilities consist of a small office and a warehouse. All the space is donated by a company that they share the warehouse space with. We worked in the warehouse for the day doing a couple different things. Our first project was to inventory and sort a donation that they had just received. We wrote a list of everything that had been donated (mostly clothes and one chewed up dog collar that we immediately threw away) and then put the new clothes into the bins in the warehouse. The donation was large and took us a little while to get through. Our next task was to fill some of the orders that had come in from the schools. The Foundation has a liaison in all the schools that they work with and the liaison sends in orders to the Foundation for what each specific kid needed. We packed orders for a couple different schools and the kids from these schools needed uniform clothing, everyday clothing, shoes, socks, and underwear. We packed each kid a bag with what they needed and it was really fun to pick out the clothes for the kids and put together outfits. It was great to know how much the kids would appreciate receiving these packages and how much they would help. After lunch, our final project was to organize all the shoes in the warehouse. Little Bit gets all its shoes as donations from Fila since the founder of Fila is from St. Louis. Fila sends Little Bit a lot of shoes and there were boxes of them that had not been organized. We went through and organized all the shoes by gender and size and we were able to clear a lot of the boxes off the shelf. We also got to use a wobbly warehouse ladder because a lot of the boxes were up on high shelves. It was a good day and I felt like I had helped a lot. Next week I will be able to go into a school and interact with the kids that we are helping and I am really looking forward to that. Also the other Burroughs students and I are going to have a supply drive starting sometime next week, probably to collect books and stuffed animals. So far I am really enjoying my May project and I can't wait to continue next week!

Hey!

I am on the blog!

First Day

First day! The Habitat office is really nice and spacious. I didn't meet too many people, but everyone I talked to was really nice. My supervisor's name is Harper. She is so kind and chill and has really cool hair. I basically spent the day doing inventory (mostly hard hats and tee shirts) in a back closet. But I had headphones, so I binge-listened to Serial.

Hello World!

I have also signed on!