Help One Another

A time like no other, it was. I volunteered again as a tutor for elementary kids. This time it was different because I met the smartest little boy I’ve ever met. Usually people ask for help when they need it, but this little boy just wanted to learn more.  He asked me all sorts of question like, “Why is there pollution?”, “why are humans the only animal capable of making technology?” and so on. It was interesting that a little boy wanted to know so much. What surprised me was that he knew his multiplication table all the way to 16 by memory  and he’s only nine. I was like “Wow ,and  I barely know mine up till twelve”.

            Anyway being a tutor is so awesome because you get to interact with others that want to learn and being able to help just stains my heart with glee.  This past few volunteering days were awesome and I look forward to doing it again. It makes my day seeing the little kids smiling after I’ve helped them. When  I was little no wanted to help me, not only does it make my day after I’ve helped them but it also makes me want to cry because I was able to do what no one ever wanted to do for me. If anyone ever ask for help from you say “I’ll do what it takes to help you” because what if one day you need help and no one wants to help you because you said no to them, what do you do then?

                                               

OHS Part 3

OHS Center, It's more interesting inside.

     I came back last Saturday to work again. I signed at 1:00, and asked if they needed help. David was there, the older one, and said yes, so my dad left and I got to work. I was slowly learning how to feed the animals that couldn't feed them selves. David was teaching me how to feed a little bird some meal worms. It was pretty hard, no lie. After a while I could get the worm in the birds mouth. At the end of the day though, a mastered it, almost.
     There were also these crows, one bigger one and one smaller one. The bigger one was starting to fly. The cage wasnt big enough for it to fly, but it would flap its wings once in a while and make a lot of wind when me and Tesse, a new girl I met, were feeding them. The big one ate bigger foods, like these huge worms, eehhhghlabbah.. and the little one had to be force fed. I didn't really learn that yet so Tesse did that. She's a senior at Mission. We had a great time working together.
     I also was in charge of feeding another bird, a house finch I think. David also taught me how to feed that bird too. It wasnt that hard, but when it opened it's mouth for food, it kept moving its head around so it took some time.
Tesse and I followed what it said on the birds sheets, and fed them on their schedule. Some were fed every half hour, some every hours, and others every two hours. I lost count on how many times Tesse and I fed them, but we did have a good time, and talked a lot. My dad came to pick me up. I signed out at 3:00, and said bye to my new friend.

Tessa**

Smiles mean alot

On Saturday, Chris and I went to the the center again. A lot of people were busy that weekend so there were only a few people volunteering. Chris and I didn't have the usual barriers that could shield us. My mom handed us a booklet with song lyrics and forced us to sing. We sang in low monotone voices so that they were masked by the singing of the adults. After singing in the hall, we followed routine and turned left into the hallway with the individual rooms. We didn't have to go in many because there were private family visits going on. Once in a while, they would let us in and the families would listen to us, too.We continued down the hall ways and entered every room that welcomed us. I remember going into one room with a lady lying on her bed. She looked so pale and fragile. I noticed pictures on the wall. There were many pictures of a beautiful woman in her 20s in long flowing dresses dancing. My mom told me that the girl in the pictures was the lady in the bed, 50 years later. We sang her 2 songs, one in English and one in Chinese because she wanted to hear a Chinese song. After, the sides of her mouth seemed to crack as she began to smile and tell us each individually how thankful she was to us. Soon we finished singing in the rooms. We went down the hall way all the way to the cafeteria. The rest of the volunteers were in the back walking very slowly so Chris and I went to the piano right outside the cafeteria. I started playing the beginning of my favorite song "Wedding Dress" by taeyang. Some people heard and asked me to play more, but sadly, the beginning was all i knew and i didn't really know how to play the piano. Soon after we finished our rounds, and we left. I have no idea if i will return to this establishment in the future but i'm sure if i do return, ill bring smiles to many people's faces.

Squeaky Clean!

Tri-City Volunteers is a very good place to volunteer at because it is local and they have a great food pantry for their clients. The people there are so nice and they love that we are helping them out. The day before we volunteered, there was a huge volunteer team that helped Tri-City so there was nothing major to do. So we ended up doing small little tasks. Starting with sweeping up the place. My first job was to take a broom and sweep all the dust and access trash off the ground. There was so much to sweep since the volunteer team cleared the place out and the ground was all messy. After the whole place was swept, we then vacuumed carpet and cleaned the windows of the lobby. It looked spotless when we were done. Back to the warehouse, we had to clean tables and counters with sponges and some soap. It was really grimy, so they gave us really strong disinfectant to do the job. We managed to do that really fast so we were waiting for a while for another job to come up. The manager was scrambling around looking for something we could do. Then finally a lot of Tri-City's clients started showing up and they would make an order and we would pretty much go grocery shopping for them in the warehouse. They had a bunch of shopping carts and you fill them with potatoes, a bag full of beans and canned food, apple juice, and a lot of bread. Once the cart is full you take a receipt copy and go to the front of the building and call their number. We also offer to put their food items into their car if they want. After all the clients were gone it was closing time and we were done. Tri-City Volunteer never looked so clean when we finished and they were very thankful of us helping them out. Even when they had so many volunteers already they still appreciate anyone who is willing to help them out.

Kyle and Deep talking about their experience at CPC

Volunteering Stuff Entry #4

Work Time: 3 hours

Commentary
Amanda: I apologize for all the unnecessary transition effects. I just like making the videos pretty, or at least in my perspective. We tried to get more video footage of this day and if I recall, this was a really long day. It was our day off and we went at 9 and worked until 12. The weather was lovely and we had a pretty easy work day.

Michael:

Commentary
Amanda: I'm sorry for being so tired. We haven't been doing our video diaries right after the day we worked. So instead, we have been waiting until the week of the due date. I realize now that it's a mistake.

Michael:

"I'll Get Close but I'll Never Hit You!"

For my third time volunteering, I decided to go to Tri-City again with Angela. On our way there, I already expected for the both of us to do something we've done before. However, when we got there, we were given jobs that we haven't done before. We got there and we're told to bag potatoes. It wasn't bad but counting twelve potatoes and bagging them gets boring after a while. When we got done, a fellow volunteer told us to help load food into shopping carts. These carts included sliced bread, canned goods, potatoes (the ones that we bagged), desserts, and pasta. After loading these carts, one of us would take a name card and take a cart with us to give to the person that is on the name card. The first time that I walked out to deliver a cart, I was approached by an elderly Asian man and he asked me about his cart. I somewhat panicked because I didn't know what to tell him since it was my first time doing this job. But not too long after that, we were able to give him his cart and everything turned out okay. At one point, when we were putting desserts into the carts, we noticed that the desserts they gave out were very delicious. One of them was a giant vanilla cake and man, that cake went through an adventure!

So here's how the cake went through adventures. We put the cake in one cart along with the rest of the food and I had the honor to take it out to an elderly woman. When I was unloading the food into her car, she stopped me and began to take out certain things out and left the rest in the cart. The cake was up next to be put in the car and as I was about to put in the woman's car, she stopped me. At first, I thought she wanted something else but I realized that she really didn't want it. She kept saying, "Too much fat, too much fat" and I knew that they were probably on a healthy diet and eating a giant cake wouldn't be a good idea. I brought the cake back inside and I told everyone how she didn't want the cake and we all joked that if nobody wanted it, we'd take it! But it wasn't too long until someone else took the cake and they're most definitely going to enjoy it!

At one point when I was loading carts, one of the people in charge was driving this giant truck thing in the center and almost hit me. Or at least I thought he did (haha). He stopped and said, "Don't worry I won't hit you! I'll get close but I'll never hit you!" It made me laugh because he seemed to have a sense of humor and I didn't see that side of him the past couple of times that I volunteered. After almost two hours of loading and taking out carts to the needy, it was time to sign out. Overall, third time's the charm. We had new jobs to do and it was definitely better than the past jobs we've had to do. Good times, good times!