One last (water balloon) hurrah

After all the counting down, the end comes so fast.

I have been waiting weeks, and waiting months, for this day. Tomorrow. My last day. My release. My scheduled permission to move on with my life.

And here it is...yet it seems to be event-worthy only in my own mind. Life goes on despite the headlines in our personal lives, especially in social work. Half our staff are gone, leaving no management in the office. Everyone is doing their job and trying to keep up. Appointments still need to be made, food needs to be unpacked in the pantry. My departure may be visible to me, but it sure doesn't matter to those coming to the center. Most of the staff, too - they go through Americorps members like weekly groceries. Sure, they'll miss me, but I'm another in the line of revolving HFRC staff.

Oh well. This doesn't mean it's not important to me. In fact, unlike college graduation - which I honored by skipping the ceremony, opting for a dragonboat race instead, and doing Life As Usual - I am celebrating this one with raucous friend time, Lebanese food, alcohol, and 90's dance music (isn't this how every celebration should be?). Celebrating a year to remember! A year to learn! A year that, after so many spent in repetitive college classes (in school), I was challenged. For me, college was just something you do - Americorps, on the other hand, was something I chose, worked for, was anxious over, and worked through challenges while in it. And beat them. I like to think I headbutted most of them into oblivion.

Ha, just kidding. But before I continue writing more metaphors that make less than half the sense they should, I am going to sign off and go to bed. To wake up for my last day of Americorps national service.

Booyah world!

Four weeks and counting...

Have I mentioned that I'm ready to be done? Enough with the muffled-morning commutes and feeling of working helplessly, with only the goal of being finished. I'm tired of combing the office cabinet and settling on crappy food I don't really want. I would like to be home for dinner once, please. So I suppose I'll outline the highlights of each week...

Week 1: July 4, my least favorite holiday, gets a bump in the polls for providing me a 4-day weekend and a 3-day workweek.

Week 2: going out with the coworkers, something that should be done more (with most of them, anyway). We're celebrating (or mourning?) the departure of both myself and Irene within a week of each other. We settled quickly on Skate World, though I think Irene, Rosie and I (the youngest and least tied-down by children or husbands) are the most excited. Retro Night - we don't know quite what this means, but it does mean Irene and I, at least, will be wearing side ponytails and ridiculous clothing.

Week 3: July 20th is Ruby's wedding - a Wednesday. Like most weddings, the lead-up seems to have gone on forever. I am excited to hang out with the gals again, see her fiance/husband in the flesh, and, honestly, see Ruby tipsy or more. Haha.

Week 4: what can I say, it will be the last week! Irene will be gone (very sad), a new coordinator will be rushing around the office (I feel for him/her...) and I will be hard-pressed to find motivation. And then I will be done! And no longer receiving a paycheck.

Damnit, money.

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

If you were here, I would tell you about the craft activities I set up each day for the kids in our Summer Food Program. How any combination of construction paper, markers, and glue occupies kids. How paint - and the inevitable ensuing mess - makes them even happier. What craft ideas would you have for me? That boundless kid wisdom would have helped me. Did you know you had an amazing spring of creativity? For adults and kids, it was alluring. Why can't we swap ideas anymore.

I just discovered kids, and their absolute honesty. Their funny answers. Their bursts of energy. Tthe quiet "yes" of shy delight. The frustration, and the exhaustion, and the fresh fun.

Right now I'm stressed out. I'm getting over a cold. I want to complain to you about my long daily commute. I miss your voice, sending me a message from your never-never-land of relaxation to "take it easy, Zoe! You're doing a lot and need to take care of yourSELF!" I would probably still nod and distractedly say "yeah...". Thanks Mom; it sure is easy to take of yourself when you're not working 40 hours a week and commuting 10 more. So many of my calls were just an obligation, but now I wish I could hear you again. I love you.

I've heard you were endlessly proud of us, and now I just want to share what I'm doing with you. I want to share my life with you to feel your pride, and make you happy. I want to encourage your own dreams, really this time, instead of listening to my experiences. I know you could do it, if you wanted to. I love you.

I have no illusions that if you were still here, I would still be distractedly saying "yeah...", and still rolling my eyes silently when you announce your (13th) grand plan of the year. But I love you so much, and I wish I could share the moments of my life with you that I know you would love.

Love you.

Six weeks and counting!

This weekend marks the beginning of the end. Six weeks left to go before I am an Americorps graduate, unemployed, free from the two-hour commute, and ready to earn the monayz.

I'll miss my girls - Irene, stomping around the office waiting for her computer to unfreeze and forever grateful for my ability to keep her organized (I do? Okay, well thanks). Ruby, that sweet funny girl, even when stressed out, who peeks over our divider to chat. Rosie, my wonderfully sarcastic friend who grins wildly and says 'shut up' anytime I compliment her (seriously or no). Lourdes, with her thick Brazilian accent making her offbeat comments even more charming.

I'll miss the casual. Wearing my sneakers to work, rocking to music on headphones while I work at my desk, wandering around the office and starting a conversation. Being able to monitor myself is wonderful.

Well, six weeks of wrapping up projects (which means starting them too, whoops!), writing reports for the next Americorps member, and spending two hours outside every day with kids, making craft projects and serving lunch. So that's cool!

Sunny Friday Bar Work?

That's right folks, right now I am sitting in a bar, drinking 16 ounces of pure peach-sweet foggy whiskey from a mason jar. Rosie and I have made our way from sushi happy hour, to pink champagne cupcakes, and finally to Swift where we have settled in to work.

So I thought I'd give a few updates:

- The arrival of June means nearing the end of this service adventure story. With just under two months to go, I am suddenly feeling nostalgic. This is my cycle: writhe passionately in the joy of new experiences and skills, squirm in the constraints of my location (college, college 2, Americorps), then suddenly grasp on to the remaining moments that I know, despite all my griping, I will miss in a few months.

That's not totally true. I'm still looking forward to finishing this, to moving on, to completing every week. But unlike the torturous month of March I can see the end of the line and I don't want to get there without a few more stops on the way.

- Summer Food Program: activities include a treasure hunt (made by Zoe!!), Carnival Day (face painting anyone?), balloon car races, making/bashing a pinata), and recycled art. Guests include firefighters (hot please!), Reptile Man, and seeing eye dogs. I've been doing a lot of planning.

- Some bad news from the resource center. My dear coordinator, friend, partner-in-crime will be leaving. Irene told me she is done working at the HFRC. I understand now - it's stressful, she never went into it thinking it would be more than a year, and our boss is not the best to deal with. It felt a little too close to the breakup of (another) family, though, and I spent some emotional minutes in the car with her. She is committed to finding and training a great replacement coordinator, and I did spend some time comforting her - she shouldn't feel horrible about her decision as she was incredibly responsible about it. She will be leaving at the end of June, possibly into July.

- But! The GOOD news is that we got another Americorps member. This in itself is not good news - I feel like a lot of Americorps positions are just a way to get a cheap employee. But it's also giving young, less qualified people like myself a chance to handle real responsibility and get experience. So maybe not so bad? Whatever the case (endlessly debatable...especially depending on your idea of Americorps' goal[s]), Irene and I will be interviewing and choosing a new member! Which means I get to sit in on interviews, and ask questions, and give my opinion...omg so cool.

- I'm going to meet with Kate's dad, who used to work a lot on campaigns, and see what kind of job prospects for September - December I can drum up.

- I'm taking 2-3 weeks in August to travel the length and breadth of California and visit all my lovely people! From the city of angels/smog to Ventura to Oakland to Petaluma to Lake Shasta...very excited.

LOVE YOU BYE!

The perplexity of cellphones

In late December a drunk, homeless man ended up at our center after we had closed and refused to leave for over an hour. He called me a racist for helping a Hispanic lady but not him, a black man, and pulled out his cell phone, more complex than my own, to look up "KKK" on google news. Yes, sir, I agree with you that racism is still alive and kicking. If I could talk over your angry blustering pronouncements, I would tell you that I am less than five hours from a two-week vacation and catering to your needs while you yell at me is the last thing I want to be doing.

I was walking down the street in February when a man sitting on the sidewalk, "please give" sign and all, pulls out a cell phone and tells his friend that yeah, he'll jump on the MAX and meet him in no time.

Most of our clients, in fact, have cell phones. Some very plain, some pretty damn fancy. They pull them out while searching for free clothes in our Clothes Closet, or dawdle in the (emergency) food pantry to ask about canned carrots. One of our admin assistants, one of those friendly-but-never-ever-ever-cross-her types, also gets a food box - and recently purchased a new iPhone.

Is this a sign of the troubled, upside-down world we live in, where people don't have enough money to buy food but direct poverty-level incomes to paying their cell phone bill? Sometimes I would believe that.

Of course, there is always the debate about poverty in developed nations vs developing countries. Those living in poverty having benefits to fall back on. There are programs to give kids backpacks full of school supplies for school, not to raise funds to build a school. And perhaps cell phones, like cars, are becoming more and more of a necessity these days. Not like food or shelter, sure, but if you want to function and get a job than you'd better have a quick way to reach you.

The company Cricket offers pay-as-you-use cell phones, which makes even more sense.

Still, I keep coming back to these two homeless guys, and to our many clients - in tough economic times, at least you can still gossip on the phone at any point. Or even better, play a game on your phone.

I don't actually have much contact with clients, and I probably wouldn't ask them about this. So maybe there are better reasons out there. It is completely and likely possible that I have not thought this through. If so, leave a comment my dear friend.

Summertiiiiime!

Waiting for summertime...

Both for the work, and for the sunshine/trampoline/delicious fruit and vegetables! Time seems to drag on and on sometimes, but now it's suddenly picking up. I realized that the Summer Food Program is suddenly starting in a month and a half...I better start coordinating some volunteers! And planning some activities! Aiiieeeee!

So I've got to do that, and make up my hours that I missed (Americorps you're lame), and do overtime work on a "Leadership Project" (OSSC Americorps you're lame). Although it'll be great to build up on hours now (in May) so that in June and July, when Kate is no longer working 14-hour days and I am still commuting back and forth from Hillsboro, I can at least leave early so I can come home to the above-mentioned wonders - sunshine, trampoline, delicious food, and FRIENDS!

The past month has been tough, but life is certainly looking up. Three months seems like a long time to work but I'm hoping with all this excitement the time will fly by. I do know there are a ton of projects to do, and I can't imagine finishing them in that time, but that's okay. I'll just pass them on to the next Americorps member and leave knowing I've done an incredible amount. Because I am proud. I will have left this place more organized and more sustainable in multiple ways. Go me!

...

It seems like more important things have dominated my mind and my time - my mom being the biggest, followed behind by Peace Corps and life ahead. Work's not really that important and I don't spend a huge amount of time there. So, I'm just writing this for the peace of mind when I note that I journalled. Sorry world.

Summer Food Program

So right now I'm planning our Summer Food Program, which provides a free hour-long activity and lunch to kids Monday through Thursday for eight weeks of the summer. We have the Zoo coming, a martial arts group, "Reptile Man", the Fire department, the library, and many many more...pretty excited!

Pretty excited for sun, for being outside for a WHOLE HOUR AND A HALF every day, maaaaaybe for hanging out with kids. That could probably be squashed pretty soon. They usually don't follow orders very well and they're messy and run around and are loud...yeesh.

The presentations/guests are cool, though not super necessary, but I can get behind this program more than Help for Holiday - though ironically, I would like to help organize that again. This provides lunch daily to kids who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch during the school year - as in, they may not have a reliable lunch (or breakfast) during the summer.

But again, the efficiency is pretty frustrating - for hours of planning, we attracted 25-30 kids each day last year and served about 2,000 meals. How many people is all this investment reaching? This is my constant question. And even though I think this program is important, I just have a hard time seeing "programs" as a long-term solution. They seem like band-aids to flawed policies and chronic underfunding. I think I'm a little too entranced with policy change.

March forward, please.

Besides the cozy cookies-and-carols of December and sun-baked (oh sun!), fresh fruit July, I have never identified feelings with months. I have never declared my love of a month in particular or similarly spoken against one. A week, maybe, a day sure.

BUT. That is all changing with March. Oh, March, how you vex me so. Literally a week longer than all of its brethren, its dull, rainy hours stretch out each workday as I check the corner of my monitor for the time. Monday evening, as I leave work, I am both relieved and thinking, three more days?

Our office has slowed considerably, in terms of volunteers, programs, and walk-in clients. Time stretches on in the windowless back office, and silence - broken only by the clicking of keyboards and mouses - seems to encourage wandering thoughts and frequent breaks to talk to coworkers and visit the kitchen. Even if the food is the same every hour and every day.

Those frequent breaks are even more inviting having made a new friend in the office, Rosie. As one of two new staff, she works in our office but actually answers another organization - in an awkward way she is competing with our staff for clients. Luckily, I am also disconnected as an Americorps volunteer. More importantly, we both insult and tease to show affection - ie we get along swimmingly.

You know, it just struck me how little I talk about the actual work I am doing as an Americorps member, volunteer coordinator, or programs coordinator. Yes, right now I am recruiting for a free nutrition class in Spanish, a financial literacy workshop, and organizing our Summer Food Program. I am at work on a manual so that the person taking my place has something much more comprehensive to guide them. But I have little desire to write about that.

What does it say about me that these things are not what sticks in my brain? That it is the process, rather than the products of my work that is most interesting? Is it because I deal with all these "helping the world" details at work and just want somewhere to voice my complaints (but then, Irene and I complain to each other regularly)? I think it is another marker that the work of direct social services is not my passion.

I have learned an incredible amount from this job, but perhaps the most valuable thing is learning what I enjoy doing and consider important. I have already realized that I much prefer improving organization, efficiency, and sustainability (and not in the hippie way please) to working with actual people. I enjoy analyzing what I am doing, what a system is doing, how it could be improved rather than plunging into a program because it's there. Sure, I'll run the program, but not enthusiastically. Unfortunately, volunteer management falls under such a category.

Irene asked me a few days what would make my last four months more enjoyable. She knows we have both been less motivated. At the time I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer, but now I know and it seems so obvious: don't make me work on things I don't believe in.

This goes out to my favorite volunteer!

When he comes in, I hang out in the food pantry, idly moving cans around to feel (and look) like I'm productive. I jump out of my seat when he comes, helplessly smiling, and keep searching for projects for him because I want him around the office.

HA! Do you think this is some romantic interest? No, Mike, my Volunteer Champion, is in his fifties (I would guess) with a wiry frame and graying spiky hair. With crooked front teeth fighting for space, his grin is a bit mischievous as he teases me about my "peeps" (what he calls my recruited volunteers) and the main export from my home state of California (yes Mike, I smoke pot all the time. All the time when I'm partying it up like you know I do!).

Being an ex-engineer from Dow Chemical, we have differences of opinion that are wide enough to create interesting conversation but close enough that working together doesn't ultimately conclude in polite, sterile conversation. When I was woken up on a snow day by his call (I'm not sure why I gave my cell number to him, but that's all he calls now), we ended up having a half-hour conversation about teacher unions, the state of schools, and the documentary "Waiting for Superman". The next week, I found a small stack of cut-out Wall Street Journal articles on my desk from him.

I don't see myself as a very good volunteer coordinator. I don't enjoy doing it, beyond the organizing aspect, and I have never been good at telling people what to do. But I am good at cultivating relationships with individuals and that is what has happened with Mike. We don't even have much work that he can do as a volunteer - he needs big picture projects with money and dedicated staff and we have none of those - but he has stuck around, becoming my reliable food order man on Tuesday mornings. I can easily imagine that we will stay in touch when my service is over, and continue to argue over union bargaining rights, international corporations, and all those topics I love.

Trucking along...

I have spent this weekend (they start on Fridays aww yeaaaah) either lazing in bed or working out. And working out was a much smaller proportion. I made cookies on Friday, which was a mistake since I had nobody to give them to - I ended up eating 10 - no joke - before 1pm. And they weren't even that good! Butterscotch and chocolate chip cookies, mmm, but way too cakey. Lower the baking soda I think.

ANYWAY. With a snow day on Thursday, I basically had a half-day of work, at home, and therefore feel very rested. I won't say I am looking forward to the week ahead, but besides waking up in the morning I am not dreading the week ahead. What does that week entail? Party planning (volunteers), phone calls galore, and...I honestly don't know what else. After the chaos of October/November/December, January and (more so) February has been incredibly slow. I prefer to be busy.

I think I need to explain why I was lying in bed the majority of two days. BECAUSE...I am obsessed. With the future. And right now the future demands adventure - and not the Americorps kind. Originally, this new adventure was Most Definitely For Sure The Peace Corps. Tell me what to do and I will do it! Send me where you want and I will go (except Eastern Europe, sorry)!

But then I read an essay on Peace Corps and foreign policy, and another on how outdated Peace Corps is, and both include how ineffective and/or inefficient it is. And then I realized, do I want to do this kind of work for two years? Do I want to be part of this organization for two years?

After 5+ hours of interning abroad research, I found some other possibilities and reconciled with Peace Corps - but with higher standards. I would think more seriously about what they invite me to do and really consider whether I would take it or not. I already have a preferred job - NGO development - and a preferred place - West Africa - and that is not good. Plus, I have conflicted feelings about NGOs!

SIGH. I feel that this is an incoherent rambling, but for all those who have made it to the end, I only wrote it for the journaling hours on my timesheet. Sucker!!

Love you.

Expectations

In my second month on the job, I gained access to the S: Drive - the "communal" drive where everyone stores documents - for programs, for volunteers, front desk information, marketing materials. I went on an exploration spree and ended up at the performance review of the past Americorps member, Colette. I knew it wasn't professional, not to mention personally beneficial, to go in and read it - but what would you do? That's right, you would read it.

On a scale of 1 to 5...5, 5, 5, 5, 5. Colette is the best, Colette never needed guidance, we love Colette. Combined with the affectionate comments from staff, it sadly is my natural reaction to feel competitive and automatically somewhat inadequate.

So it was nice to actually meet the famous Colette - put a flesh-and-blood face on the legendary name. Sure, she is gorgeous and perfect at her current job (well, I can only speculate but I'm sure she is) but it helped my little ego boost itself up again.

Besides that, I spend my time daydreaming about summer weather and post-Americorps life. Namely Peace Corps. Or political internships. Also, fielding job offers. Mwahahaha! Not quite as great as it sounds, but Jennifer of Salvation Army offered me an October through December job helping coordinate their holiday program and Kate's mom/Kate said I should work on her campaign in November. So not really a job offer, but cool opportunity nonetheless.

Love you all - all two of you!

Hi old lady, let me network with you

Let me get off my high horse so you can properly hear my wise musings. This evening I networked with the managers/coordinators/other supervisory word of a state-wide early childhood intervention program. Me, this itty bitty 21-year-old discussed sharing resources, setting up meetings, and swapped shiny business cards (okay, so they just gave me theirs - the school district refuses to make me any, jerks).

Of course, previous to this self-inflating moment I sat for two mundane hours with snatches of fascinating information. It seems that in order to get to the "inside" information - the actual interesting things I go to these trainings for - you have to listen to dry program histories that are inevitably typed up on an overly worded Powerpoint, slapped on with a token picture so it looks like the visual part is useful. It's like an obligatory dig through the mud in search of a few glittering diamonds. I search out these opportunities - even when they don't relate to what I'm doing, or even really interested in - in the hope that I will catch those glimmers and have them lead to something more.

Once we finally get past the necessary program review and history, which everyone stares disinterestedly at, we arrive at question and answer time. Sometimes this is exciting, interactive, and thought-provoking. Alas, not tonight. One concerned mother's continual questions are answered with program staff getting off on naming their collaboration efforts and progress. Each woman (they all have sensible, graying haircuts with practically identical pantsuits) is very protective of their name and title - we serve Outer Banks, not just Banks, dear. Director of therapeutic programs, not activities. None of the woman's questions are really answered.

As for me, I spent the session taking the notes that have become this blog post. I also wrote down their brainstorm ideas for political advocacy, which I will use later in life when I am a brilliant and motivated political advocate. Activist. Lobbyist. Advisor. Legislator. PRESIDENT.

Another week, another birthday, more and more questions

It is my birthday this week - February 2 - and I am turning 22. Which is, in my opinion, an altogether unremarkable age. Apart from being pleasantly duplicate, it lacks the tipsy excitement of 21 and the beautiful asymmetry of 23 (which happens to be my lucky number, so it lucked out).

I feel like the mood of this 22nd birthday matches my life at the moment. A pleasant age, but unremarkable, plodding along. I feel a little lost in the city I thought I had settled into over two years. I think about leaving Portland, but I'm not sure where I would feel excited and fulfilled. I'm not even sure what's missing or what can "make it better".

Honestly, I feel a bit lost in general, not just socially. What am I doing with this job, and how does it fit into long term goals? What ARE my long term goals? What do I want to do with my life? I know I'm not supposed to think about these things too much - enjoy the moment, everything happens for a reason, blaaah blaaah blaaah - but I need a direction.

I have been tossing around the idea of the Peace Corps, of a political/policy internship, of travelling independently. Nothing satisfies me. I know where I want to end up - vaguely - but I don't know how to get there, and it's frustrating me to hell.

I guess for now, I will set the goals that I can. I will continue working hard at the resource center and plan an epic treasure hunt for our Summer Food Program. I will work out five days a week until I look and feel like a rockstar. I will read good books, keep up with the news, and, you know, keep trying to figure out my future in every detail.

I've got to write more.

Oops, meant to do this on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday. Now it's Sunday. Had a good weekend. I'll fill this in more later?

Also...Irene (my supervisor if you hadn't figured that out) offered a job! Not a concrete, definite, defined job but a job! We were talking about my post-Americorps plans on the ride home and I said I wanted to stay in the area until the end of the year, as long as I could find a job. And she said "wellll...would you want to work at the resource center?" and I said "hmm, heck yes!!" and she said "well because if I could write a grant for the position, you could keep working here if you were interested."

Yay! Yay! Yay! ALTHOUGH I really don't view this as an actual job offering until there's funding, which is unlikely in my mind. What is really is, to me, is the ultimate verification that I am doing my job well. Exceeding expectations, even? Because I could be doing my job well, but not well enough to be offered a real, actual salaried position! And I was! How wonderful to add to my hard-working, uncertain and self-doubting brain.

Yay!

The non-profit's place

I was talking to my dad about non-profits last night. How they should be run, what they should do, if they should even be around. I've been thinking about this a lot. Kate took a class this fall, "Advocacy and Political Participation by Non-Profit Organizations", dropped a few facts into my lap, and since then I've thought hard about the role they play and, subsequently, what I want to do.

One of those facts, for instance, is that when high taxes on large companies fell, so did the money for social services provided by the government. And as those social services decreased, non-profits sprang up; they became popular, nowadays they are even chic. I read somewhere that Portland, always following the trends, is said to have the most non-profits of any major city. They literally spring up everywhere and for everything - I wrote a (fake) grant for a non-profit whose sole purpose was to bring magicians to senior homes and hospitals.

And then there's the bureaucracy and the natural shoestring budget of all but the largest non-profits (well they all have the bureaucracy). My favorite example is my own Hillsboro Family Resource Center: the Washington County Commission on Children and Families saw there was a need for basic family resources in 2002, and that's how the HFRC started. BUT the Commission didn't want to oversee us, so they gave that task to another non-profit called Youth Contact. And finally, we are part of the Hillsboro School District - I'm not even sure how. What this all means is that whenever we make a big decision, it goes through all three groups. Different progress reports go out to each group, and those who give us grants. In order to install a PRINTER, we have to call the school district tech support to get an appointment to install it themselves (they hate us, by the way, because they definitely don't see us as part of the district and therefore see everything they do for us as a favor).

As always, this is something I want to read about more. Because another interesting topic is the rules around non-profits and political advocacy. Of course, there are non-profits whose purpose IS advocacy. But in my opinion, the huge number of social service organizations spend far, FAR too little time on advocacy. The realization I am coming to, and have been for quite some time, is this: offering short-term services without looking at long-term solutions (laws! National! State! County!) is shortsighted, inefficient, and does not help your clients. Should non-profits strive to eliminate themselves? Is there ever realistically possible?

In my next post, I will do some research (i.e. talk to my lovely Kate) on political advocacy and non-profits.