Service and Learning Together

A BIG part of being a summer scholar was participating in the service learning project. This was at times the most fun and at times the most difficult part. We had to pick an organization and find a child between 5th and 8th grade and help them figure out what they want to be when they grow up. My partner, Keven Chavez and I went to the South Omaha Boys and Girls Club. Our kid's name was Alejandra Ordonez. She is an eighth grader at Beverage Middle School. She said she wanted to be either a veterinarian or a tattoo artist. We met with her 4 times throughout the program and were assigned a project each time. The four projects we did were the Dream Careers Collage, Exploring your Dream Careers Powerpoint, Career Essay, and Action Plan.



The "Dream Career Collage" was the first project we did. Keven and I brought magazines and a poster board and Alejandra did a collage of her two careers. We helped her find pictures to put on her collage and gave suggestions of how to design it. When she was all done, it looked pretty cool. We did a kind of 3D spiral thing with pictures of animals on it because she wanted to be a veterinarian. She also had other pictures of animals and tattoos and people with tattoos because her other career was a tattoo artist. This was definitely the most fun of all the projects.

Our second project was the "Exploring the Dream Career Powerpoint". For this project, us mentors had to research her careers and make a powerpoint about them and present it to her in order to help her figure out which one she liked the most. In the powerpoint we had to include information such as how much money someone in these professions make on average, what kind of education they need, what a typical day is for them, etc. Our powerpoint looked really good and after we presented it to her she figured out that she wanted to be a tattoo artist because she loves art and likes tattoos.

Next time we met, we did the "Career Essay". This was the most time consuming project of the bunch. Alejandra had to write an essay about being a tattoo artist. In her essay she talked about why she wanted to be a tattoo artist, what it takes to be one, and what influenced her to be a tattoo artist. The essay had to be at least a page long. Hers was a little over a page and that was good.

The last project we did with her was the "Action Plan Assignment". This was the most difficult of the four. Keven and I had to help Alejandra create an action plan to achieving her goal. We first used teh worksheets given to us to write down steps and then had to type it up on a computer. This was the most time consuming because it took a while to figure out exactly what she needed to do, tarting now, to be what she wants to be.

The service learning component was the most rewarding part of the program. We got to help out a younger student and help them figure out what they want to do for the rest of their life. Even though the projects were not always fun or easy, we got help out someone else which gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. This helped me realize that I want to go into a career that involves helping people. Before this program, I wanted to major in journalism and psycology. Journalism was first though. Now, I am putting more thought into psycology because as a psycologist because your job os to help people with their personal problems and help them to change their lives for the better by giving them advice or just by being someone there to listen to thme when no one else will. Service learning was qn enjoyable, sometimes difficult, but rewarding part of the program.