Service Learning Blog # 2

1. Describe the people – age, gender, social status, economic status, education, family background.
For my service learning I decided to join Self-Esteem Mentors Increasing Life’s Excitement (SMILE). With this on campus organization I was placed in a group that goes to Longfellow Elementary School every Tuesday for an hour. At Longfellow me and four other Gonzaga students mentor elementary school students ranging in age from five to about ten. The students we mentor are half females and half males, they also come from a lower economic status and are looking for a safe and fun place to go after school.
2. Write a paragraph in the first person, as though you are the person in need of the service, and describe who you are (as in the Creative Guide exercise “Who am I?”).
I am a second grader at Longfellow Elementary School in Spokane, Washington. I go to school until three in the afternoon and then I go to an after school program called SMILE, where I get to hang out with my friends from class and see my friends from Gonzaga. While at SMILE we do arts and crafts, play games and we even get the chance to win prizes. Without a program like this I would not have as much fun and I would not have a safe place to go to wait for my mom to pick e up after she gets off work. I am a fun and outgoing kid who is grateful for the chance to interact and befriend our mentors from SMILE.
3. What institutional or social structures have created the need for this service?
Many parents have difficulties picking their children up directly after school because they are busy at work or because they have other errands to do. Children also need a friend who they can look up to and talk to. That is why programs like SMILE are so crucial, because without them those students do not have a safe place to go and an older friend to share their problems as well as their successes with.
4, “Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.” Crossan argues that this saying was normalized as time went on (pp. 60-61). Rewrite this aphorism for the population you serve at your SL site.
Blessed are the young for they are our future