Our immersion started today with Sarah (and only Sarah) sleeping through her 6:30 shower alarm, which eventually led to panicked 7:30 yawns as she rushed to shower. The whole crew set out at 8 to the Wesley Rankin community center, but not without enduring the Dallas morning commute traffic (yikes!) As we got into the thicket of traffic, the van crew was jamming and commenting on all the sights and sounds Dallas. Did you know there’s a big building with a mural of pastel robots in Dallas?! Our van was particularly concerned with the vast amount of accident/traffic violation lawyer billboards along the highway. I might add; however, our advisors have done an amazing job chauffeuring us everywhere – including the now THREE Walmart trips. Upon reaching Wesley Rankin at 8:30, we began to set up the sign in for the students, gathered materials needed for our various activities, and got breakfast snacks ready for the students.
As students trickled in, we were also greeted by a Youth Group from a Methodist Church from Oklahoma City ready to give these student an awesome day. Although we knew this other group would be helping, we didn’t know they would be mostly middle schoolers. At first, we thought this would be a disadvantage, but as time would tell, they weren’t just volunteering – they were befriending the other students due to their closeness in age.
We played several activities in the gym including freeze tag, through the hoop, basketball knock out, and soccer. We also did educational enriching activities such as an All About Me worksheet, reading time, and reflection time. After reading some All About Me sheets, we found out some of our students want to be teachers (YAY!), lawyers, doctors, and professional soccer players (he’s a Ronaldo fan, too!) A main focus of our program is to help students understand their identities, so we have a variety of activities to explore this – stay tuned for updates on their growth!
After all our students were picked up, our group did indirect service which included scrubbing down highly trafficed surfaces, searching for supplies in cluttered closests (we helped organize those spaces as well), redoing a showcase space to fit the summer camp theme (our creative team decided to incorporate camping & biology together!), and reorganizing book shelves (these kids have so many awesome books!).
We decided to celebrate Pi day by hitting up a local pie shop; however, most of Dallas apparently thought this was a good idea too – the line was nearly a block long! We decided that we should just head to Walmart instead, but we are going back on Friday!
We arrived back home at nearly 6 and began cooking dinner. Sarah and Catie have headed the cooking responsibilities and made another great dinner – beef stroganoff! After dinner, we talked about general topics, Nadine and Sarah went on a walk, and we enjoyed ice cream for dessert.
Our reflection today centered around “it makes me happy that…” and “it frustrates me that…”. Our group then discussed their answers, which led to a healthy conversation about government interaction with its citizens, education policy, the contradictions of humanity, and how we can create a more equitable future.
We are so thrilled with how this week has gone so far and cannot wait to get even more immersed in this community!