OCE Fall 2010

HIGHLIGHTS

• Gordon in Lynn (GIL) pioneered four new Community Partners with our The Great Conversation service-learning partnership that have been a wonderful success. 1) Catholic Charities ESOL: English language classes for adults from the East Asian community; 2) Bridgewell: adult day-care center for folks with various mental and physical disabilities; 3) Ford School: assisting elementary school teachers in their classrooms at one of our favorite public, "community" schools. 4) Living Fields: Cambodian church that has a youth ministry program on Thursday nights and Sunday mornings.
• OCE's Advocacy + Awareness branch helped to host two Justice Talks where students could come and speak about issues they're passionate about such as trafficking, food systems and homelessness.
• 6 students from Karl Dieter Crisman’s Math134, Survey of Calculus, tutored highschool math students as part of their course requirements. The students tutored each week, exploring the importance of functions for understanding advanced math concepts.
• 16 students in Music Education volunteered their time to teach 5th graders how to play a Ghanian folksong as part of their En Camino visit at Gordon.
• Dr. Keller and Dr. Boorse and a number of General Electric volunteers, spent a morning with 80 2nd graders from Ford School in Lynn, exploring aspects of nature including the woods, the swamp, and the insects in the fields.
• This semester there were close to 20 (out of 30) returning tutors that signed up for a second year of College Bound (CB)! This helped the program grow by allowing us to build on already established relationships between Gordon students and the kids.
• CB's student-leadership development program recently expanded to included six (rather than four) College Bound interns. The two additional interns worked to further establish our new middle school branch.
• The CB middle schoolers took an exciting field trip to Connors farm in Danvers MA! While there the kids and tutors completed a giant (John Wayne themed) corn maze!
• On October 28, and 29 Curwin youth through College Bound were bussed to Gordon to go Trick or Treating in Tavilla, a residence hall on campus! Thanks to resident director Meredith Benson and Tavilla residents, the kids got dressed up and enjoyed going door to door collecting candy!
• In late November, members from the chemistry department taught CB 3rd-5th graders about sustainable chemistry and how to make environmentally conscious glue!

REFLECTIONS

Boys and Girls Club is such a relief from the strained nature of college relationships. I live for the unquestioning affection of children who clamber all over me, scream my name from across the room, compliment me in the most extravagant terms, idolize me without knowing much about me, never want me to leave, follow me around, ask me to play with them, watch for my attention, and tell me all about their lives and their hobbies and their friends and their families. When I see their faces every week, I really don’t care about how smart I sound in my paper or whether my friends think I’m cool or if I’m going to get a well-paying job when I’m older or if I’ll ever fall in love or if I’m too fat or anything in my life. I feel only the need to be there for them and pour as much love as I can into the few hours I spend with my precious, lively little people. I hope that I can overshadow some of the complexities of their lives outside of Boys and Girls Club, simply by reciprocating their unconditional love and at least presenting a calm, reliable exterior. Perhaps I am not inwardly calm about economic injustice, sexual abuse, gang or class wars, unrepresentative politics, broken neighborhoods or alienating architecture. Yet over and above all of this, there are places where it is possible to experience and participate in the exchange of love from human to human, child to adult, black to white, rich to poor, Christian to Muslim, citizen to foreigner. I hope that if I ever get involved in law or politics, I can help make these exchanges more prevalent, more easily accessible, and more affecting for the long-term health of communities.

Tala Strauss – Intern for Boys + Girls Club

Service isn’t about the person offering the service but it’s about the people being served. Listening to what the girls have to say has been a very special part of my experience with Girls Inc. I’ve met girls of all backgrounds with varying home environments and it is really amazing the things these girls will share with you. Listening skills are important with our service work in Lynn and in all areas of life.

Alanah Percy - Intern for Girls Inc.

It is small moments during a great conversation that are really special to us. Like when Thomas taught me some Gaelic or when the women help us with learning to knit. We always left Briarcliff better than we came because the members there are so welcoming and friendly.

Lauren Parker – Briarcliff Adult Care Center

I loved it when the kids began to look forward to my coming each week and would run and hug me when I came in and shout my name. The last week I actually got to lead a little bit too, which was scary but fun! Captain Scott and Nora are also wonderful-they are always so gracious and grateful for our coming and I always leave feeling happy and appreciated.

Erin Climpson – Salvation Army Salem

In the Middle School College Bound program, we've done our best to spark the interest of students with projects on their heritages and what they'd like to do in the future. Although we sometimes worried that we still weren't connecting with the students, it was encouraging when one student wrote us a rap about her experiences at the end of the year party:

College Bound
Is a place for fun
But also to get
Ya homework done.
College Bound
Is a place with
Responsible
Mature adults to
Supervise you.
College Bound
That's the place to be
College Bound
That's the best place yet.

Anna Carlson – College Bound Intern