provided by Emily F.
I serve on the Young Heroes team at City Year Rhode Island. Young Heroes is a program that runs on Saturdays starting in January and runs through May. As part of this program, City Year members and middle school students get together and talk about social issues for the first half of the day and then do some sort of service for the second half of the day. If we discuss the environment the in the morning, we might spend the afternoon cleaning a local park. This gives middle school students a chance to learn about their communities and make a difference. Because I serve on this team, I am not in schools during the day. I spend time recruiting in middle schools and getting in touch with interested students. In the afternoon for two days a week I am able to go help out with the after school program, AfterZone, at Bridgham Middle School.
We had our overnight for the Young Heroes this past weekend, known as Heroes Training Academy or HTA. We spent the week before hand preparing icebreakers, team building games and general activities to keep the Heroes engaged from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon. We also worked on how to present the trainings to them on what it means to be a hero, what we expect from them, and who Martin Luther King was in an interesting way. So many details go into an event like this but I feel that all of our hard work really paid off. I led Friday night’s relay race and I was so impressed with how smoothly it went and how each team cheered each other on. I do have to say that this weekend would not have gone nearly as well if it hadn’t been for our awesome volunteers. Now that I’ve met the students I’m really excited to begin our Saturdays and work with them for the next five months.
Friday, November 20th
Our corps recently held a Thanksgiving Service Day at the West End Community Center. The WECC provides a wide range of support for the neighborhood ranging from preschool to an emergency food pantry. We worked alongside 20 volunteers from the community to brighten up the building with fun murals for the kids and fresh paint for the offices. Everyone had a great time helping such a wonderful organization and the improvements came just in time for a turkey giveaway the following day.
provided by Kristin U.
I began serving in a sixth grade bilingual class at Oliver Hazard Perry Middle School in October 2009. There are twenty-seven students in the class and their knowledge of the English language varies widely; some are fluent in English while others know only a few words. Most are somewhere in-between. Some of the kids resisted me and the help I offered at first, but after a few weeks they started to come around. They began to trust me and ask for my help instead of closing their books and saying “I can’t do this.” They’ve even started teaching me Spanish slang phrases and tricks on their mini teck deck skateboards. One of my biggest challenges at the moment is remembering twenty-seven different secret handshakes.
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, the teacher and I decided to have a traditional Thanksgiving feast in the classroom. We knew this would be a fun, new experience for the class since many of the students had never celebrated Thanksgiving. Each student brought something: mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, sparkling apple cider. The teacher brought the turkey and I was in charge of stuffing and gravy. As we enjoyed our meal together and discussed what we each were thankful for, I began thinking. It occurred to me that I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to work with these students. Each and every one of these twenty-seven kids is amazing. They have taught me so much about myself and about society and the world. Everyday I am excited to get to school and see these kids. I never wake up and think “I don’t want to go to work today.”
I am so thankful to serve in this class and at Perry Middle School. I knew I would be impacting kids’ lives when I joined City Year; what I didn’t expect was that they would make such an impact on me.
Young people are increasingly psyched about giving back and making a difference.
Over the past year or so, interest in programs like City Year has skyrocketed. Applications to City Year tripled last year! That’s great news for all of us.
On the flip side, increased applications + limited slots = increased competition for those that want to serve.
That brings us to the point of this post…. the benefits of applying early to City Year.
Meet City Year corps member Bert Rivera! He’s 23 and a recent college grad from Chicago. He currently serves as team leader in a middle school in Los Angeles.
Last year, Bert submitted his application by the Nov. 30 deadline.
Check out his video to get his take on applying early to City Year.
