In my prior service experiences I have gotten the opportunity to work with children. During my junior and senior year of high school, I volunteered at Panther Place, which was an after-school care program for students who did not have the safest place to be after school – either their parents worked long hours or they lived in a bad or unsafe environment. I loved this experience and working with the children, but sometimes I took the kids for granted. I appreciated the kids and loved helping them with homework and playing four square with them. I felt like I helped make their day a little better. I would come home after my hours at Panther Place after soccer practice and be exhausted. I would often think to myself, maybe if I took more time for myself – this is where I would take them for granted. I never once consciously thought about the impact they had on me, and oh man, they did have a great impact on my life.
Coming into the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club, I had the foundation of the 5 Pillars of the 100 Dollar Solution, which helped me think more about reciprocity. I could more fully understand the impact the children had on me and continue to have on me. At the Salvation Army, I mainly work with kids between the ages of 6-9 and they are wild. They also have hearts of passion - for everything. They love each other and they love all the staff, but they are also passionate about the best position in knock out basketball and where they sit in the computer lab. When this happens, I end up intervening trying to mediate the situation. For example, I came up with a fun game to see who gets to go first in knock out. I would give them a command like, “first to touch their nose” and the winner would get to choose his or her spot in line. As much as they can fight over who goes first, usually this game makes them laugh so hard they forget about who called first.
When I’m not intervening, I’m playing some kind of game, whether it be dolls or kickball, or helping with homework. They all want to finish their weekly homework packet on Monday or Tuesday, so they can play the rest of the week. In many ways I able to act like an older sibling to the children. One day a girl named Nikaya, came up to me and gave me this drawing.
Coming into the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club, I had the foundation of the 5 Pillars of the 100 Dollar Solution, which helped me think more about reciprocity. I could more fully understand the impact the children had on me and continue to have on me. At the Salvation Army, I mainly work with kids between the ages of 6-9 and they are wild. They also have hearts of passion - for everything. They love each other and they love all the staff, but they are also passionate about the best position in knock out basketball and where they sit in the computer lab. When this happens, I end up intervening trying to mediate the situation. For example, I came up with a fun game to see who gets to go first in knock out. I would give them a command like, “first to touch their nose” and the winner would get to choose his or her spot in line. As much as they can fight over who goes first, usually this game makes them laugh so hard they forget about who called first.
When I’m not intervening, I’m playing some kind of game, whether it be dolls or kickball, or helping with homework. They all want to finish their weekly homework packet on Monday or Tuesday, so they can play the rest of the week. In many ways I able to act like an older sibling to the children. One day a girl named Nikaya, came up to me and gave me this drawing.
She told me I was the one in the middle and she was on the right. She is only six years old. In this moment I realized I was so lucky for the kids. I got to be, in many ways, an older sibling. Being the youngest in my family I was the one who got help with my homework and the one who drew pictures for everyone. I also received this picture from a girl named Samantha.
It is a diamond, which I thought was actually really good for a second grader. In no way do I think I am taking the place of a biological sibling, but it is the closest I have felt to being an older sibling and that has brought me happiness that others have visually noticed. On the days I volunteer there, yes, I can be exhausted, but also I usually get asked by my friends “why are you so happy today?” Sometimes my answer is “The Boys and Girls Club” and sometimes I simply show my friends a new drawing that has been added to my collection.
-- Jesse Giles
-- Jesse Giles