Final thoughts on service experience

The video below explains what I learned from my service experience.

Video Reflection

     I have had the privilege of serving an organization designed to educate people. Despite scheduling issues and other difficulties, I am grateful to have an opportunity to serve other people. I am also thankful for Erica Cook, who has been patient and helpful in working things out so that we can fulfill class requirements. Attached above is a video of some of my thoughts about the Center and my experiences with it. 

     One pretty fascinating performance which they had during the International Eating and Reading Night was Capoeira, an African balancing game set to music. The music is intentionally designed to get caught in your head, so fair warning! Above is a clip of the performance. 

     The Carnegie Center is especially oriented around educating children. To this end, they have tutoring, family classes, and also they have authors come in to read their children's books. One child wrote this sweet thank you note, and this was really touching to me. 

Alecia Whitaker is an author originally from Kentucky. She now lives and writes in New York, but the Carnegie Center invited her to visit and read one of her books. 

     All this being said, I think that it would be easier to serve my community if it was not through a class. Without the pressure of class deadlines and confirmations of service, I believe that young people could help the community more effectively. I strongly encourage anyone to volunteer at the Carnegie Center in their free time.

Video Reflection: Setting Up for the Event

Above is my video reflection for the Carnegie Center. I explain what it was like to volunteer for the first time and discuss my feelings towards my service site. I am very pleased with the Carnegie Center and look forward to volunteering again.

Video blog reflection

I am now a little over halfway through this service learning course, and I have to say it is going a lot better than my previous experience with service learning, but there are also some things about it that i'm not so fond of, as I explain in my video reflection. I think that if I had voluntarily chosen to do work with the Carnegie Center, and wasn't trying to squeeze in volunteer hours around my classes and psychology research, that I would have had a much better experience. The experience that I have had so far has been very limited, as I have only attended one event, but it is very evident to me that the Carnegie Center is a great place for children to go if they need help outside of school. They have a passion for helping children and a love for literature that I have never seen before. Unfortunately, I am not able to attend the event they will be hosting this saturday, but if you are viewing this blog out of curiosity and want to see what great work the carnegie center does, I HIGHLY recommend that you check out this event; It should be fantastic, and carnegie classics are only hosted once a year.

Artistic representation of the classic novel "Fear and loathing".

The image above should give you a sense of the aura created by the book, which should be present this saturday at the carnegie center as well. I will be helping turn the inside of the carnegie center into what looks somewhat like the setting of the book. I believe that those who decide to attend this saturday are in for a treat.

Video Reflection

Having worked one event thus far, my experience with the Carnegie Center is far from complete. However, we are also pretty far removed from our orientation and initial event, and this time has given me ample opportunity to reflect on my experience as a whole and prepare for my upcoming experiences with the Carnegie Center. In this video, I share some of my thoughts and opinions on the service learning project and the Carnegie Center specifically.

 Their annual book-themed party is occurring this weekend and preparations will be hectic. .

The novel for this year's event at the Carnegie Center is "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" by Hunter Thompson. The 70's settings in the novel should make for an interesting and exciting event Saturday night.

This event has been a huge success in years past and I am excited to help continue its success over the next few days.