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.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
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.
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.
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