Youth Volunteerism Campaign with the Boys and Girls Club:

This week we had our first meeting with the Mary Ryan Boys and Girls Club, which was more of an orientation and getting to know the very basics of the project.  The students seemed to be a very energetic group and I cannot wait to see what type of creative ideas they have in store for us.  

We presented the idea of how we will be learning about the importance of volunteerism and later the students will take all the information they’ve learned and put it together in a presentation to their peers.  As with the Financial Literacy project, we are leaving a lot of the decisions up to the students while we stand back and guide them through each meeting.  I look forward to getting deeper into the project and hearing all the feedback from the students.

-Chelsee Bates

It finally came; after two weeks of waiting because of the big snow storm, the Boys and Girls Club got underway.  For our first Monday night gathering the group was introduced to the adult leaders, mentors, and helpers that would be involved in their development of volunteerism. The night started off with an ice breaker that allowed the teens to get a couple quick laughs before settling down and getting the project started. The group was asked many questions about volunteer work to begin brainstorming. With some of the questions asked, I was able to find out which teens have volunteered before, where they have volunteered at, what makes them want to volunteer, and how excited each teen was to be able to have an opportunity to help others.

In our second meeting we began by dividing into three different groups and creating a commercial to promote volunteer work. With the teens knowing their main project for this semester was to create a presentation not only about volunteer work but also to promote volunteerism to other youth in the community; this was a great exercise for the teens to brainstorm their ideas. In my group we started off listing characteristics that would make a great commercial such as; entertaining, knowledgeable, color schemes, etc. to make sure that it would be meaningful to the other two groups we would be presenting too. By knowing what makes a good commercial, the group and I then began to brainstorm some benefits from volunteering that we could incorporate into our commercial. After presenting our commercial to the other two groups and the other two groups presenting theirs to us, I, along with the other mentor Chelsee led a group discussion about what questions might be asked before volunteering. To end the night, Laketta, Shannon, Laura, Chelsee, and I evaluated the next two weeks by creating agenda for next Monday and starting to get the project guide filled out so we can begin to share ideas with the group of what their presentation should be about.

-Lucas White