Hillel Blog
Day 4
Posted by: Alex Schwartz on Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 12:00:00 am
Day 4:
With much anticipation we woke this morning to see what the fourth day would bring. After breakfast, we made our way to the busses and before we knew it, we were at Allapattah Middle School for our second day of physical service. As before, we started our day at the middle school by being lead in “PT” by the City Year team. In addition to the fun and quirky callisthenic movements we were shown yesterday, we were taught an additional movement known as the Banana Peel. As expected, it was a fun way to get started in the morning. If you remember from yesterday’s posting, we spent our previous day in Allapattah reorganizing a storage room by removing and replacing thousands of old texts books. Today’s task was very different. We spent our time preparing and painting pillars that line the central hallway in the school. While the task was not as physically demanding as moving thousands of textbooks, we saw a dramatic improvement in the schools physical appearance quickly. As custodial staff passed by they even commented on the visual improvement that took place in such a short amount of time. In just three short hours we saw a new bright hallway emerge were a dark and dirty hallway once was.
After a bit of lunch and some time to relax we left the Allapattah Middle School for Dunbar Elementary where we were to spend our second day working with students. Since Wednesday is early let out for the students we decided to host a field day for their enjoyment. The field day consisted of three stations: Jeopardy, Bingo, and Outdoor Games. Our role as volunteers was to guide the students through each station. Getting a chance to see third graders get really jazzed about educational trivia was really awesome and gives hope to the idea that every child we work with has a great potential to succeed academically. As I write this blog entry this evening, I can only reflect on the day’s work as deeply impacting upon the people around us as well as us. This trip has been great and still much is planned for the remainder.
Alex Schwartz
BS Chemistry, ’12
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