Midterm reflection

Although I have only had the opportunity to be a part of one event hosted by the Carnegie Center, it is already evident to me what a large impact the organization has on the Lexington community. Upon entering a service learning class, it is clearly explained to each student how important it is to be involved in the various events that happen on and around campus for the good of the community. At that point in time I knew that my actions in the class would end up being beneficial for others in some way, because that is generally what comes to mind when people think of charity or volunteer work. After having spent a few hours at the Carnegie Center helping children do crafts in honor of national peace day, I now understand that doing volunteer work is not only good for others; it is good for me as well. When looking to learn from an experience, you have to take all the details into consideration. Keeping this in mind, I carefully payed attention to the children as they worked on their peace day projects. I noticed how they shared things, and helped each other by providing useful feedback and ideas that could be used to improve their creations. The children were unknowingly demonstrating the meaning of peace and harmony right in front of me. What was meant to be a lesson for the children had also become a lesson to me.

                                                          Children working together and with parents on crafts
 I can definitely say that this was an eye opening experience, and I can't wait to see what other fun events the Carnegie Center has in store for the remainder of the semester.

Midterm Reflection

Carnegie Center
When Erica, the volunteer coordinator for the Carnegie Center emailed us about the opportunity to work their Literacy and Learning night, I was ecstatic. The Center has one of these nights once  a month. The nights are themed, families in the community are invited, and the center gets ready to host a time dedicated to literacy and fun!

Volunteers assist children in playing with moonsand.

 During literacy nights at Carnegie volunteers work stations for children and parents to interact with others. The theme of this literacy night was peace and children enjoyed making crafts that reflected that. 

Here is an example that I made of the types of bracelets
that children could create.

Our volunteer coordinator, Erica, Gave us options of what stations we wanted to work at and I chose the jewelry making station. At this station kids were making jewelry and incorporating their names with the letter beads and using various shapes to make a design with the beads. It was nice to see the children helping and sharing with each other. Although some of the kids were shy I could see them slowly starting to make friends.

Volunteer pictures on the upper left helps a child
 string beads to make a necklace.

The other volunteer who I was working with was in middle school which was eye opening to me because when I was in middle school rarely would I ever volunteer to do service work. It's great that Carnegie accepts a varying age range of students to help them out.

After the children were finished making crafts, they moved on to the reading room where local Lexington poet and rap artist, "Divine" was giving a talk about respect and peace. This was one of my favorite parts of the night because it was not only for the children but for the parents. in fact this is something that the parents probably got more out of than the children. Parents, especially of lower income, may have trouble keeping the peace in their households. As you can see from the photo to the left, a lot of the parents are mothers, and they could even be single mothers, who have to raise children on their own. This talk you could tell was really engaging.

 

Finally, the night concluded with a  dinner, donated by a local restaurant. During the dinner of salad and pasta, Tasha and I helped served the participants of the Peace Literacy and Learning night. People were very grateful and often came back for seconds. I am glad to have partook in such a nice event put on for the community.

Midterm Reflection

A service-learning class is something I have never participated in before and I was extremely excited to choose my site and begin volunteering as the course began; however, I have unfortunately not been able to volunteer yet and it is already half-way through the semester. Looking through the list of possible sites, I was immediately drawn towards the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning. I have always enjoyed working with children and have spent the past five summers tutoring a young girl so I knew a site that dealt with education and young children was perfect for me. I was ecstatic when I discovered I was given my first choice and could not wait for my first visit. It was difficult to find a day our whole group could go together because of our conflicting schedules. We eventually found a day four of us could go, but unfortunately, it was the four members of the group without cars. After a long debate of whether we should walk or attempt to figure out the bus system, we decided to try the bus. We managed to miss our first bus and ended up having to walk half-way across campus to get to another bus stop. We waited at least forty minutes in the blazing heat for a bus with no idea if it would actually show up or not.

                                          Waiting for the bus to take us to the Carnegie Center.

The bus eventually pulled up and we all climbed on, eager to escape the heat and finally make it to the Carnegie Center. However, we were greeted with glares and rude comments from the bus passengers. None of us were expecting to get harassed on public transportation that day so we hopped off on the nearest stop and walked the rest of the way. Once we finally made it to the Carnegie Center, we met with Erica, the volunteer coordinator and she explained our roles for the semester. The organization did not really need volunteers until late October and November because that is when they host their main charity event. They expressed how important it was that we were available to volunteer for many hours during those few weeks because there is lots of preparation that goes into this event. After discussing our volunteering roles, Erica gave us a tour of the Carnegie Center. It was very interesting getting to see first-hand how their organization helps children and adults in the community. 

Although we had a difficult time getting there, we were all impressed with the Carnegie Center and were excited to start volunteering. I am very excited to finally get the chance to actually help with the Carnegie Center during the next week by assisting with their charity event. I look forward to finally getting the chance to having a first-hand effect on this wonderful organization. 

My Midterm Service Learning Reflection

My experience thus far at the Carnegie Center has been extremely positive. I have only worked one event so far, but I have been impressed by the sense of community that I feel around this place. Building a true sense of community anywhere can be difficult, but especially so in a place where so many people are strangers to one another. The staff has done an excellent job creating an environment in which strangers can come together, connect and learn from another. They take pride in building a strong community, and their joy is infectious. I also felt a sense of pride and joy knowing that I had been able to contribute to the sense of community that the Carnegie Center creates.

This is the aftermath of a dinner preceded by an event meant to promote peace and community and is an example of one of the many ways in which the Carnegie Center brings people together.

I was unsure of what to expect going into the service learning experience. When I was told that part of what we would be doing may involve transporting books and helping set up for events, I was worried that I would not be able to take much away from the experience. However, after being given the opportunity to interact with the people that come to the Carnegie Center, I have been very pleased with the experience. It was incredible to watch children illustrate through bracelets and art activities their understanding of peace. Their illustrations of peace have served as a reminder to me that peace often comes down to simply respecting who other people are. The children did not care about the ethnicity or background of the people they interacted with and their ability to interact without any sort of prejudice inspired me to reflect upon myself and try to rid myself of any prejudices that I hold. 

These children interacting so freely with one another is a great example of what peace truly is and helped me reflect on how I can follow their examples in my daily life.

Going forward, I intend to use the lessons about peace and community that I have learned through my interaction with these people in my own life. I am excited to go back and help with their upcoming events and hopefully gain more invaluable experiences working in such a genuinely heartwarming environment.

International Eating and Reading Night: Midterm Reflection

    Last week, I attended the International Eating and Reading Night at the Carnegie Center. I volunteered as an event assistant, greeted guests, and helped with cleanup afterwards. Even though I have communicated with Erica, the program consultant at the Center, I had never gotten to visit the building before. It is a beautiful building, and very old. Its high ceiling and chandeliers are particularly elegant. I enjoyed just walking around in the century old building. Below is a picture of the meeting room.

The Carnegie Center holds an International Eating and Reading Night every year, inviting special readers as well as leaving the floor open for any guest to speak.

       I found out that until 1989, the building which now houses the Carnegie Center was actually the Lexington Public Library. According to, the plaque in front of the building, it was "the first Library west of the Alleghenies".  Below is a shot of the sign taken by photographer Vladimir Kopolovich. 

Andrew Carnegie was an industrialist and famous philanthropist, donating millions of dollars toward many charities and programs throughout his career. 

       I love the building, but the Eating and Reading part of the night was intriguing too. The thirty or more guests each brought various dishes from their homelands. There was everything from Turkish Delight to West African dishes. There were plenty of delicious dishes, and eating together is the perfect place to make new friends. 

     After the meal, various speakers read poetry and some prose in their various languages. Between German, Arabic, Spanish, Russian, and many other languages, no one understood the meaning of all the readings. But the sounds were beautiful. The intricacy and grace of language constantly amazes me. What a great way to educate one another! I am excited to serve at many more of such events. 

My First Event as a Carnegie Center Volunteer

     A few weeks ago, I went to the Carnegie Center to work my first event as a volunteer. I admit that I was not terribly excited to go; I had a lot of homework and another commitment of my time was going to affect how much work I could get done. However, I am really glad that I decided to work this event. It was a legitimately fun event to participate in. The event was held to commemorate the International Day of Peace, so we spent most of our time there helping the children that were in attendance with making cards and bracelets that had plenty of peace symbols on them. It was definitely a great experience; it was heartwarming to see the children create items that demonstrated what peace meant to them and proudly show off their creations to equally-proud parents and guardians.
     The kids were clearly having a great time, but I thought the most interesting part was seeing what the Carnegie Center had put together for the adults to do while their children were occupied. They brought in a man named Devine Carama to speak to the adults. Devine is a Lexington-based rapper who tries to preach positive messages to local kids and young adults through music. He also works closely with some local foundations (such as the Carnegie Center) and often speaks at events to spread his message. He had a very interesting method to attract people's attention: he freestyle rapped about the need to spread the message of peace to today's youth. After a few minutes of this, essentially all of the adults and even some of the kids had come to the room where he was speaking and listened to what he had to say. He spoke about how he has witnessed bullying and violence firsthand and was working constantly to put a stop to such actions. His speech was profound, truly heartfelt and clearly having an impact of some of the parents in the audience.

Devine Carama speaking to the adults in attendance about the importance of spreading the message of peace.

     After his speech, the Carnegie Center put together a dinner with the help of some local restaurants. It was a cool experience to see the children proudly donning their new bracelets or showing other children their cards, and it was also interesting to hear some of the parents talk about what they took away from Devine's talk. 

     Overall, this was a very positive first event to work. Everyone was having a nice, relaxed evening and learning a little more about what peace means and how we can spread the message of peace in our everyday lives. This was a great experience and I am looking forward to working another event there in the near future.