When Doubting Would Be Easier

"May God's Resurrection Power Fill You with Hope For a Broken World." ~ OC International Blessing

2015-03-31T13:09:00.000-07:00

Today I was listening to music while getting work done-- a rare treat brought on by being the only Pomona Hope staff member in the building for a few hours while the gym floor outside of my office was getting a buffing. During this time, a song came on Pandora that I vividly remember listening to when I was first starting to volunteer with Pomona Hope, back in 2006. I remember driving home while listening to it, in tears, because of all the things that the kids I volunteered with would tell me about what life was like for them. Back then, there was a group of girls who, I was later told, everyone had trouble getting close to. It didn't seem to be much of a problem for me. But I guess, where others were trying to bond with these 6th graders over nail polish and stickers, I came in with ghost stories and Disneyland facts (my weirdness paid off!). After a couple weeks of hanging out, they began to open up to me. And the things they told me about living in the neighborhood were so heartbreaking, that I would drive home in tears. Kids should not have to know the things they knew. They should not be desensitized to the things they had to see, hear, and live with.

When I heard this song again today, I had to shut the door as I remembered the calls I would get from one girl when she was at home, because she couldn't take it anymore, and I would try to calm her down and tell her that I loved her, and that it would turn out okay. I cried back then because it all almost seemed hopeless, and it wasn't fair for the kids who were growing up in that.

The song that brings back this flood of memories? "How to Save a Life" by The Fray. It was a pretty new song back then, and it seemed to speak straight to the situation I found myself in.

"How to Save a Life"

Step one, you say, "We need to talk."
He walks, you say, "Sit down. It's just a talk."
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
'Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
Pray to God, he hears you
And I pray to God, he hears you

And where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

How to save a life

How to save a life

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life

How to save a life

When I heard it today, I decided to look up the meaning of the song. I was a little concerned about the actual meaning, given the feeling of hopelessness throughout the song. It turns out, it applied to my situation more closely than I thought:

According to lead singer, pianist and songwriter Isaac Slade, the song was composed and influenced by his experience while working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens:

“ One of the youngsters I was paired up with was a musician. Here I was, a protected suburbanite, and he was just 17 and had all these problems. And no one could write a manual on how to save him. ”

Here I was, a protected suburbanite, and she was just 12 and had all these problems.

Pomona Hope has changed and grown a lot over the years. We now have 3 staff members, instead of one. We have an Executive Director! (YAY! Emily!) And we're hoping to continue to grow, and to be a vehicle for the transformation of the community we serve.

I managed to keep in touch with most of the girls over the years. Several have stayed involved with Pomona Hope. They've graduated high school. One is a wonderful volunteer with us now and one went on the UC Berkeley! But at some point, early on, that one girl stopped coming.

I found out last year that she fell in with a bad crowd for awhile, and she became a mom at a young age. But all hope isn't lost, because from what I hear, she's a good mom, and she still lives in the area. So maybe her son or daughter will join Pomona Hope in a couple years, and we'll get to start fresh and help the second generation of the family. But this time, I'll be able to devote my whole self to making sure the pattern doesn't repeat itself, with no manual, but more experience, thanks to your support.

Happy Easter!

"Sometimes It's Easy to Lose Faith in People. And Sometimes One Act of Kindness is All it Takes to Give You Hope Again." ~Randa Abdel-Fattah

2015-02-13T18:30:00.001-08:00

WARNING: This blog post starts out a little despondent, but if you stick it out, it gets really good! I just think that the first part is still really important for understanding my frame of mind when you get to the good part.

I'm sitting here "fundraising" this afternoon, which usually puts me in a "meh" kind of mood. I put "fundraising" in quotes, because it's what the staff here at Pomona Hope use as short-hand for any number of tasks: catching up on our records of who is giving how much to our campaigns, writing thank you cards to new donors, writing letters to send to everyone we know to ask for money, writing updates to regular donors, writing new blog posts, advertising these posts on Facebook, Pinterest, and anywhere else it may get positive attention, cold-calling friends and family to ask for donations (sorry guys, it's only because I love you!), etc. I love updating everyone on what is going on, and getting people excited about what is happening, but sometimes, it's a lot of work. But it is what I signed on for.

Often, the fundraising part of my job takes the back burner to more urgent things that come up, like volunteer training or some kind of event for the kids or for me to attend to keep partnerships with other organizations. This has been the case since November. Monday was my first chance to actually sit down and write a blog post, but because so much had happened, and it had been so long, I figured pictures were the best way to go for everyone.

So today is my first real, buckle-down-and-fundraise day in a long time. The first thing I did was update my records on giving. Usually this includes emailing people to remind them that certain people give to my campaign rather than general fund, which I feel bad about every time, since I know the general fund needs it too. But ultimately, records need to be accurate, and I'm still not fully fundraised, so I need it too! There is the chance I may have to cut my hours if there's not enough coming in designated specifically for my position, and as I've mentioned before, there's already not enough time to do everything. Today, I didn't have to correct one thing. AND I found some nice surprises!

Normally, fundraising is one of the least fun parts of my job. It tends to also be the most stressful part of my job. I dread that moment when my director asks for an update and I have to tell her that I just haven't had the time, between training and scheduling volunteers, maintaining partnerships, communicating with parents and teachers, overseeing interns, checking in with kids, and running programs. Especially at this time of year, when my pool of funds tends to dip low. It's very easy to focus on the negative when it comes to fundraising.

But today, instead of looking at how I'm still coming up short on fundraising after two and a half years, I'm looking at how many people have given so much to make sure I could do this work. Instead of thinking about the people who can afford to give but don't, I'm looking at the names of those who gave and how little they, themselves, have to give, especially in comparison with so many others.

Today, I'm feeling incredibly blessed.

This week has been a week of givers.

On Saturday, I learned that I received a grant for my salary from the Janet Aiko Sekiguchi Foundation for my work here, at Pomona Hope. It's a grant given in memory of Janet Aiko Sekiguchi to those who are carrying on her "legacy of social justice through urban education and ministry." HOW PERFECT IS THAT?! It feels like a totally new ball game when you receive a donation for this kind of work from people you don't even know. It's someone else saying that I'm probably doing something right, and the chances are they're not just saying it because they don't want to make me cry.

They're REALLY BIG baskets, guys!

On Sunday, at church, I received a big donation of really meticulously put together art supplies from a really nice lady who struggles with Parkinson's. I'd known she was working on this gift for months, and it did not disappoint. It turned out to be two HUGE baskets filled with pre-made projects, games, crafts, etc. for the kids. On Wednesday, she and her husband came to visit during our K-3rd graders art time, and she got to show them what she made (she even brought more!). There were some kids who were so fascinated by her and all of the gifts she brought, that they spent the rest of the day with her!

I really wish I'd gotten her and the kids playing Frisbee.

As I'm typing this, our kids who Walked for the Hungry back in October are having a Pizza Party, courtesy of Inland Valley Hope Partners! Apparently, because our group was a group of kids, we were entered into a drawing, and won! So right now, the kids are eating pizza and playing games down the hallway. And they made a new friend in Kami, from IVHP.

Group shot! Minus Crystal, our photographer.

There was a certificate and everything!

They would have been happy with just pizza, but look at the smorgasbord!

So, as I sit here listening to the children laughing down the hallway, with the thought of all that people have sacrificed so that I can be sitting here, I just want to send a thank out to all who support Pomona Hope and my work here. Whether it be through money, prayer, creating partnerships, and things I'm not even aware you're doing. I'm feeling it.

There are some really great kids here, and I feel so blessed to spend my days with them, blessed that people believe in my work here, and blessed to be working for a better future for them all.

The Garden Workshop has a new intern!

They learned all about Roly Polys (Pill Bugs?)

Art time!

Valentine's Day Bracelets!

Ha! I caught one reading, one talking, and one playing Magic: The Gathering.

"Hope Is Knowing That People, Like Kites, Are Made To Be Lifted Up." ~ Author Unknown

2015-02-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

Once again, it's been way too long since I've updated you all. (I apologize profusely!) So I'm going to try to keep it shorter by just showing you what happened in pictures.

Halloween crafts!

Junior High Art

Proof that sometimes, my desk is clean... but not very often.

Jeff with one of our kids in his Halloween costume

Still planting in October!

I was Peggy Carter before it was cool.
Not a flight attendant, like everyone thought! Only she knows my pain.

I don't know why I didn't get a group picture of all the kids in their costumes on our field trip to Lincoln Park for Trick-or-Treating! But they were all adorable, and had a lot of fun.

See? I'm there! And they stole my camera again. ;-)

Art, the building janitor, caught a bunny in the church courtyard.
Then he brought it out to Miss Barb in the garden.
While the K-3rd graders were there.

So now Kevin and I have a bunny.

Meet Scout.

Parenting Classes, Family potluck!

One of the kids gave me his mom's recipe for Chicken Salad. It's delicious.

This Advent, our K-3rd graders were visited by Kindness Elves.

Kindness Elves encourage the kids to be nice others, and think about good things.

Like things they're thankful for (they decorated the tree with that).

And who they could pray for

And who they could share with

And what they like about others

And who they could do nice things for

Like the birds in winter

And they could make New Years Wishing Wands to wish for good things for everyone.

Plus, they're way less creepy than "Elf on a Shelf"... and less expensive (Shhh!)

They were surprised when I caught them reading.

And he was super excited about the "Annoying Orange" that his teacher gave him.

And this happened...

He did good.

Christmas Lights!

Learning Hangman in Kindergarten... not bad.

Christmas Craft!

He's happy because it's edible.
(Ice cream cone covered in green frosting and decorated with candy.)

And Christmas Party!

Thanks to Baseline and LifeSong Community Churches!

And all who donated gifts for kids to give their parents

Still had to do homework.

The High Schoolers got into it too!

All we had left.

I turned 30.

This is what I do on my breaks, apparently... dog shaming.

And last month, we went to Harry Potter Land!

Sorry if you're not nerdy enough for this next bit.

And saw Hogwarts!

Heading into Hogwarts!

And toward the Hogwarts Express (with my officiant!)

I've been saving up for SO LONG to be able to do this! And that was just for the plane ticket, food, and entry.

We also visited the Homework House in Azusa to trade ideas!

Last week, they filmed a music video in our (First Pres.'s) gym

And the decorations were a lot of fun!

Ok, I'll try to do better at keeping up! Feel free to comment if you have any questions about anything you saw here.

But in the meantime, if you were touched by anything you saw here, please consider helping me stay at this work by clicking on the "Donate Now!" button at the top and typing Kids Coordinator into the Comments section. Every little bit helps!

"Hope is Our Four Letter Word" ~OneRepublic

2014-10-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, now I'm catching up!

Last time, we talked about how the summer went for the kids and the interns, but I didn't really update you on my summer, so I thought I'd detour a bit from Pomona Hope for a section, and talk about my mission trip to Kenya.

Kenya
This trip to Kenya was especially different for me, since I wasn't one of the youngest ones there this time! I actually went as a guardian of two of the girls from my church and spent most of the trip being called "Liz-mom" by the high schoolers and young adults from my church who came with us. Even if they were there with their actual moms.

Me and my trip kids

The trip was very special to me because I got to see the girls grow and how they changed, and I got to reconnect with a couple girls who were not there the last two times I went. We're facebook friends now. ;-)

Overall, the entire trip was a success, and everything that was planned was completed (and more!) despite their best efforts otherwise. The teachers got trained, the school kids were kept busy with P.E. games, art, and science lessons (by our group of missionaries), music lessons happened for the girls from the orphanage, and 2 American-quality playscapes were built for the kids! (One for the school and one for the orphanage!)

I helped with the Science Lessons for the students at the school and with the crafts and activities for the girls after school was over while we were there. Most of the science lessons consisted of making ice cream.

And when we got here, I realized I lost my glasses. :-(

And if you want to know what this next picture is all about, just ask!

Beginning of the School Year
Now that we're all caught up on Kenya, I should talk about the beginning of the school year. The Pomona School District started in the middle of August this year, so we started registering kids at the same time. The first day of registration was C-R-A-Z-Y! What happens when kids are registered is that parents are taken into one room and given the full rundown of what the program is like, what is expected of them and their kids, etc. During that time, the kids are tested with tests that are put out by organizations that provide standardized tests for schools as well, to give us a baseline for where the student is starting and measuring their improvement. It also helps us so that we can see in which areas the students struggle.

As I was saying, the first day was ridiculous. I had one adult volunteer come to help, and nearly all the students (30 or so) came in that day. This is in stark contrast to the next day when I had several adults available, and maybe 10 kids. It just all worked out that way. So, a note for future reference: Future Liz, please remember that everyone comes to the testing on the first day!

It got pretty crazy because any kids K-1st grade need to be tested one-on-one, and 2nd graders need someone available to help them out with the reading portions. We ended up admitting 20 K-3rd graders and several more registered and are on the waiting list.

Even with all that, the first kids to start (the next week) were the Junior High and High School students. We wanted to give them a place to use the computer and get help with their homework if needed.

Jeff and I tried something new this year, when it was just the 6-12th graders, We had a movie day. The first Wednesday they returned to us, we started the day with them working on their homework (instead of their traditional snack time), and then, with enough time for the movie to finish, we all watched "The Sandlot", ate popcorn, and had sodas together. We figured it would be a good "welcome back" experience, as well as a good way to get around low volunteers, the fact that it was too hot to be in the third floor computer lab, and that many of the regular workshops were not ready to start yet, since they wouldn't be until other groups came.

ALS Ice Bucket Video
So, this happened...

I think you can imagine all the four-letter words I was trying not to say.

Plus, this mean kid keeps stealing my phone and taking selfies!

Bullying
Like everywhere else in the world (I learned this in Kenya this summer), bullying is sometimes a problem, even for our kids.

We've had some issues with kids picking on other kids, but we've also made it very clear that that behavior is unacceptable. The ones who got in trouble for it have come back with better attitudes, and everything seems to be water under the bridge. I just hope that things continue to improve.

Hugs All Around
There's always a lot of love to go around here as well, but there were a couple of notable hugs that just really touched me when I saw them.

One of our great volunteers this year is a retiree who joined us during the summer program because his son was volunteering with us over the summer as well. His son went back to work for the school year, but this volunteer continued to come help us out. He specifically wanted to work with the youngest group of kids, but they weren't scheduled to start until 6 weeks after everyone else did. He still joined us 3 out of 4 days a week, so I placed him with the high school students, since they are also the ones to work with the youngest group of kids. I figured it would be a good time for them to bond and be able to work everything out. My heart pretty much melted when I watched one of our high school girls run up to him at the end of one day to give him a hug goodbye.

Another cute story is from a student who's group was not supposed to start yet, but I knew she needed (desperately) whatever extra help we could give her. One dedicated volunteer comes in to help this student every week (throughout all last year as well, and I think the year before!), so when this volunteer was ready to start, I called this student in to get help. Now, this student has struggled with memory issues the entire time we've known her. Even as her academics slowly improved, she still wouldn't remember the names of the volunteers who worked with her very consistently every week over the course of years. But one of the days she came in just to work with this volunteer, I got to watch as, at the end of the day when they were packing up, she looked up at the volunteer and said, "Thank you, Genie!" and gave her a big hug. I just teared up right now thinking about it.

Meeting with a Teacher
Does anyone else get nervous about teacher's meetings? I was a good kid in school, so the thought of having to go into a special meeting with a teacher would have terrified me (as in, "what did I do wrong?!", not that teachers are scary). We have one student, in particular, who is a very special case, and since last year, I've made it a policy to always meet with her teacher and try to work with him or her to help this student out and make it a team effort. It was actually the idea of a volunteer who was working with her last year.

Always Looking...
For new volunteers! It's weird, they all keep moving or getting jobs or going to school or something. Know anyone to whom this video would appeal? Please share it with them!

Fundraiser at The Brick!

They called us! Which I think is super cool!

The Brick Market and Deli is a new restaurant in Pomona which is actually owned by a family who helped raise me from K-5th grade (prime Pomona Hope years!). I've been going to it since it opened and the food is delicious! I got pretty much every week.

But they called us as part of their efforts to get the word out about themselves. They called a lot of nonprofits in Pomona, which I think is a pretty cool way to go about it. They're really community minded. And did I mention the food is delicious?

The flyer is below. Please go and support Pomona Hope! 20% (TWENTY PERCENT!!!) of your purchase will go straight to us. That's a really high number for one of these things!

Make sure you bring this with you!

And Don't Forget These Cute Kids

My internet connection is on the fritz, or I would show you so many more!

"Learn from Yesterday, Live for Today, Hope for Tomorrow." ~Albert Einstein

2014-08-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've posted (sorry!). So, here's a (hopefully) quick summary:

End of the School Year
The end of the year festivities went fairly well! We had our traditional party day with homework (always homework), pull pinata, BINGO, and the end of the day water balloon fight. I look forward to that part every year. I was even so excited about it that I convinced my sister to put off moving back to Hawaii so that she could join in the fun! She left the next day.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the water balloon fight because I was busy getting soaked.

Summer Enrichment Program 2014
The Summer Enrichment Program this year was completely run by an amazing group of interns who we called the Fab Five. It was made up of two longtime volunteers (Ryan and Crystal), one of our interns from last summer (Jessica), a new friend from Florida who heard about us through family (Hannah), and Jelitza, our first high school graduate who just finished her first year at Berkeley!

It was so wonderful having them all here! Jessica ran the overall program as the Coordinating Intern, so she did everything from update the training manual and train volunteers to coming up with schedules every day and coordinating the program every day. And she was awesome at it. She also led the Junior Leaders Workshop with Ryan for the Junior Highers during snack time every day.

The other four interns were in charge of coming up with their own curricula for workshops and then teaching them. They each taught a reading workshop to a different age group, and then taught one other workshop every day. Ryan taught the Reading Workshop to the Junior Highers, and then either gym games or math workshop the rest of the day. Hannah taught the rising 4th-6th graders' Reading Workshop and then taught either fitness or garden/nutrition the rest of the day. Crystal taught the Reading Workshop to the rising 2nd-3rd graders and computers every day. Jelitza taught the K-1st graders' Reading Workshop and the drama workshop every day, where all the age groups were working on a production of The Princess and The Frog for our end of program Open House, which they performed for their parents and community members.

While all of this was happening, I was in East Africa on a mission trip (for almost a week and a half before and the first week of programs), and then I came back excited to see everyone at the beginning of their second week and only made it through a day and a half before coming down with a terrible case of the stomach flu and being stuck in bed for another week. I finally came back halfway through their 3rd week of programs and had the following pictures taken throughout the rest of the program.

I didn't know what they were doing, but it deserved a picture.

snack time

Jessica giving announcements

Jelitza teaching the reading workshop

Hannah looking like a superhero.

Pablo helping him with his English.

The junior highers worked with the 2nd-3rd graders once a week.

Ryan teaching Junior Leaders

I love this since he left the program last year because it was difficult for him to sit still, and now he loves leading the little ones.

The Interns had a prize option of a water balloon fight with them after the program one day.

Brothers!

Jeff's talented wife, Meg, came to help with choreography.

Throughout the rest of the Summer program, I spent most of my work hours planning for the new school year, making changes to the After School Program based on suggestions from volunteers and kids (and things I see other groups using), and mentoring the Interns as they were working on the current program. And shopping. I did a lot of shopping to make sure we had enough supplies for when the Junior Highers started 2 weeks after the program ended.

"Hope Begins in the Dark, the Stubborn Hope That If You Just Show Up and Try to Do the Right Thing, the Dawn Will Come. You Wait and Watch and Work: You Don't Give Up." ~ Anne Lamott

2014-06-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

I am writing this post with a heavy heart, as a dear friend, and member of both my church family and Pomona Hope family, passed away the other night.

Dave was the father of one of my best friends, and the husband of Miss Barb, our Garden Coordinator, who is basically another mom to me. From a Pomona Hope stance, Dave started volunteering with Pomona Hope almost 2 years ago, before I had actually started working here. He was in between jobs at the time, and he knew that Miss Barb and I really loved it here, and we were in need of volunteers as the school year was starting up. He got really close to a couple of our kids who really struggled with eye problems and behavioral issues. But he had a heart for all our kids, and advocated for Pomona Hope in our church, speaking about those two boys, in particular, to the entire congregation when he gave announcements.

When he got another job, he was still able to help in others ways. He put us in touch with the donor who originally paid for our water coolers in every room. Before that, Emily went out to the grocery store to fill up jugs of water by herself. Even now, we get excited when "The Water Guy" comes, because we're usually out or close to it.

The kids who met Dave continued to ask Miss Barb about him. And when Dave got sick last year, several of our kids made "Get Well" cards for him. I don't know what they'll do when they find out, or how we'll even tell them.

He had a whole year after his trip to the hospital, during which time, he celebrated the birth of two grandchildren and the ordination of his daughter as a Presbyterian pastor. And he could not have been prouder.

He was a huge supporter of our program and our kids. He did what he could to help out, when he could. He and Barb even put Jelitza on their family cell phone plan when she was still in high school, as an encouragement to stay in band, and then continued it when she went to college, so she could keep in touch.

I can't even begin to list off all the things he helped with in church, often being the point person for anyone to ask, when they didn't know who to ask.

I think I'm still in shock, as I consider the fact that I won't see him anymore. When I go to his house for dinner with Miss Barb, or to hang out with Lauren, he won't be there. He won't be sitting one pew back and just a little to the right from me. He won't make the announcements anymore, take communion to those who are unable to make it to the Sunday morning service anymore, and he won't be there to step in when there is a need.

He was not perfect, but who is? He was extroverted, he had a cheesy sense of humor and a "take charge" attitude, and he probably took on too much a lot of the time, which means that the void he leaves behind is that much larger in multiple arenas.

He loved animals, romantic comedies, his family, and of course, Jesus. He recognized how much he was blessed, he sought out Jesus, and he had a very generous heart. And he will be missed.

"Never Let Go of Hope. One Day You Will See That it All Has Finally Come Together. What You Have Always Wished for Has Finally Come to Be. You Will Look Back and Laugh at What Has Passed and You Will Ask Yourself... "How Did I Get Through All of That?"" ~ Author Unknown

2014-05-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

New Furniture!

This blog episode was typed up over the course of two weeks because I usually work on it throughout the week and then put the finishing touches on it on Friday, when I have no kids to prepare for. Last Friday, though, we spent the day building all the new furniture we were able to purchase with the grant we received from the Stamps Foundation. I must say, things are starting to look pretty great around here!

Jeff and Justin showing off the new bookcase they built.

New sitting chair in my office that won't make my back hurt!

New filing cabinet for Liz! I was running out of space.

This is our new Board president, sitting in a bookcase.

The Homework Room in progress

Nobody's slacking here.

Some of our college volunteers here to help out.

New cubbies that are NOT made out of cardboard.

New cabinets to hold science supplies

New bookcase for K-1st grade. And so much space for more books!

This is what it looked like after the first day (and second, and third...).
I think they like it.

New, MATCHING chairs EVERYWHERE!

New bookcase for 2-3rd grade. Also, plenty of space to expand!

My Nerdiness is Showing
Last Monday, I actually really connected with the two Junior High students who have been giving us the most trouble. With one, I offered to help him out if his teacher really didn't believe him when he told her that he has people who can help him with homework after school. At the end of the day, he came in to my office, patted me on the back, and then told me he had just given me his trust and faith in mankind. It was weird, but he said it was a good thing, so I'm taking the win.

The other student and I started talking about computer games that we've both played/are playing. Who knew that my humble beginnings as the product of nerd royalty would prepare me for working with kids in a rough area of Pomona? I think I got him when I told him that I learned to type while playing Everquest, and he said he's in the Beta for Everquest Next (why is there a "Next"? World or Warcraft pretty much killed that franchise... I'm sorry, that was the nerdiness I was talking about). The more he opens up to me, the more I realize he is almost exactly like my brother. I'm not sure if they would be friends, or if they would hate each other. But it's always good to know you're not the only one. :-)

In other news, the chess craze is spreading. We're taking Pomona by storm!

We start them young around here.

Keeping them quiet during homework time. After this, they asked to play it every day.

And these are for my aunt and uncle, who donated the K'nex and Legos. This kid wants to be an engineer.

Exhausted
Last Wednesday marked a new challenge for me as Volunteer Coordinator and scheduler. We had 5 adult volunteers for the entire day. For 50 kids. Not all at the same time. We're well-staffed when we have 14 people throughout the homework hours.

So, my quick fix was to have the 4-6th grade group and the 6-8th grade group travel together for the day. Since the 4-6th graders get there an hour before the other group on Wednesdays, and they do nothing at the same time, it got a little bit hairy there for awhile as I tried to figure out how to make sure everyone got their snacks and the younger group got their Art and Gym games in. Keeping in mind that, once all the volunteers got there, there would only be two adults to split between all of them. And those volunteers wouldn't arrive until more than an hour after the kids did (which is their normal schedule and usually works out just fine).

Solution: Younger group's Art and Gym Games took place BEFORE snack time, so that they got to eat snack with the older group after all, and do homework at the same time, and everything else that they had in common on the same schedule. Everyone was in one big room together.

For the most part, they did pretty well! But having been the only one in the room with them for the first half hour before gym games, and constantly having to explain why things were different today over and over, and having 20+ kids asking me different questions all at the same time, during a time when they were allowed to be talking (not homework time), was just exhausting.

That, and there are a couple kids in each of those groups who just don't know how to stop talking. Ever. It's not even a possibility in their mind. Even when they get in trouble for talking too much or at the wrong time, they keep going, because they can't not talk. Which usually means they have to be smart alecs, in order to continue on in having something to say. Because smart alecs always have something to say or respond to or noise to make of some kind. I hope you get the point here, because the introvert in me can't take it anymore. I was tired.

And Then...
That night, I had just enough time to drive my sister home, drive myself back home, and eat dinner before I started going blind. Oh wonderful, it's migraine season for Liz. (Not necessarily the kids' fault. I tend to get them just before winds pick up. Seems like it has something to do with the atmospheric pressure.)

The worst of it was Wednesday night, but I spent much of Thursday completely wiped out. Luckily, I had wonderful, self-reliant volunteers that day (and enough of them!), so it was a fairly easy day, Coordinator-wise. Though I finally admitted to myself at the end of the day that I probably should have just stayed in bed that morning.

The saddest part of that day was that we were saying goodbye to 4 amazing and dedicated volunteers, who were all either graduating from college or starting a new job the next week. It feels like the end of an era.

They all ended up in gym games at the end of their day.

When it was time for them to leave, all the kids, 4-8th grade thanked them.

Last Friday Workshops
Last Friday, in addition to building furniture most of the day, we also had our last math workshop. Almost all the kids who ever came were there. We played a game of Magic: The Gathering, with Kevin in charge. It was probably the least amount of complaining the kids did the whole time. I think Kevin may want his own workshop soon, just to teach the kids the game.

They seemed pretty interested.

It was also the last Friday Art Workshop run by the dA. They decorated cookies for everyone building furniture. It was delicious. :-)

I remembered to take a picture after I took a bite.

Weekend Fun!
So after building furniture all day on Friday, I decided to spend all of Saturday cleaning/organizing the house in preparation for the Mother's Day dinner that was cooked for mine and Kevin's families on Sunday.The cleaning happened (I don't know what else to say about that, except that I am also almost caught up on Downton Abbey).

The dinner went better than I ever expected! I forgot to take pictures! I had no idea that that many people could fit in my small house. And I never thought before about how warm it would get. But Kevin cooked a very delicious steak and everything seemed to work out.

These Things Happen
This week has been pretty interesting too. As I was coordinating Tuesday, I had a kid bend down to pick up his folder off the ground and slam his head so hard that he was bleeding, but he kept insisting he was fine. So I cleaned him up and made him finish his homework in my office where I could keep an eye on him, in case he passed out or something. He was pretty much fine, but I told his mom to keep an eye on him anyway, just in case.

Tragedy Strikes the City
I also found out on Tuesday, that one of the victims of this horrible murder-suicide that happened last week was best friends with two of my high schoolers. They're taking it pretty hard. It really sucks to have something so awful and unexpected hit so close to home. If you have it in you and your budget, the last remaining family member is taking up a collection to bury her family. You can help out by clicking here.

Survey Fun
I sent out a survey to all our volunteers asking them about their experiences at After School with Pomona Hope on Wednesday afternoon. It was heavily based on a survey I remembered getting a few years before when I was just a volunteer. It also asked them about any suggestions they had for the program, so I'm hoping to have some inspired ideas to work on over the summer for the Fall.

We've already received a few responses and they're pretty good so far! Makes me feel a little bit better about my work performance so far. Sometimes it's hard to tell, when I'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, whether I've communicated everything everyone needs to know effectively, or if I just said something horribly offensive (I wouldn't expect that, but who knows?).

And Some Excitement for Your Day
As the kids were leaving for the day on Wednesday, I had a little run-in with a homeless man. He had passed by a few minutes before with someone he later called his wife. He came back while many kids were still waiting to be picked up, didn't make eye contact as I asked him if I could help him, but crossed himself, mumbled something, and started walking down the ramp towards our door! I got in front of him and put my arms out, since kids were still coming out, and told him that he couldn't go down that entrance because kids were coming out. There are MANY doors to the church, but that door is just for Pomona Hope. We don't even let our own kids come in that door for Youth Group if they skipped program that day. They have to go around like everyone else.

He kept insisting that he had to talk to someone inside because his wife was hungry. I tried explaining to him that we didn't have any food to give (for this very reason), but if he went to another door and rang the doorbell, someone MIGHT be there who may be able to help him.

He kept walking forward throughout all of this, and I kept backing up to stay in between him and the kids, and there were a few times I didn't back up fast enough and he bumped into me. Then he would yell, "Don't you put your hands on me!"

Luckily, one of the parents of a couple of our kids came to my rescue. I'm not sure what would have happened if that parent wasn't there, because he was definitely more intimidating than I was at that moment. The man left screaming at us, "Where is your compassion?!"

The sad part was that he was so agitated to begin with that I didn't have a chance to give him the resource we do have available to give to people who come to us hungry. It's not food, but it tells you where you can get food and shelter.

I haven't had to stand up to anyone like that since I worked at Disneyland and people were insisting that they could do whatever they wanted because they paid to get into the park (completely disregarding the fact that everyone else did too). This was a different kind of feeling though. It's a little scarier when you know they're more desperate, but I'm glad I was the one in the line of fire, rather than our kids or volunteers.

They're Not All Bad
There's also a really nice homeless man who has been hanging out across the street this week. He has a broken leg, but he waves and smiles at me when I enter and leave work, but he's never anywhere around when the kids are coming and going.

COULD Have Been Crazy
Thursday marked the time we began our last week of programs for the school year. We had said goodbye to most of our regular Thursday volunteers who work with the two oldest groups (4th-8th grade) on the previous Thursday, so I was down to one adult volunteer and one high school volunteer to help both groups together. Normally we struggle to keep the ones who don't have homework quiet enough for the ones who do to work in silence, but with only two volunteers, and the extreme heat agitating everyone, I sent the few students who had homework to another room with the high schooler, and kept everyone else in the larger room to play board games or read quietly. It totally worked! I definitely hung out in that area of the building more, but I'm glad that we didn't have any major issues.

As for Garden Workshop on Thursday, it was the last one of the year, and it was 102 degrees outside, so that happened inside, in our one classroom with A/C (not counting computer lab). Emily M, our exiting Garden Coordinator came in to show the kids how to plant several different kinds of herbs in pots. She had them decorate their own pots first. It was a super cute idea and it seemed like most of the kids were getting into it! One kid who came too late to participate even got jealous. (I gave him the example that Emily gave to me.)

Well done, Emily! Thank you SO much!

Your herbs have faces too.

PLANES!
Today (Friday), as a reward for students who did the most "I'm Done" assignments (which is our way of keeping the kids quiet and productive during homework time if they have none or finish early), the kids who won are came in to watch Planes with me. I'd never seen it, so it was fun. We gave them popcorn and punch.

Normally for this reward, we take a very small group of kids to Boomers, but since it's so hot and we're all still super busy (with no time to find drivers/chaperones, plan a budget and agenda for the trip, etc.), this seemed like the best solution for everyone. As it is, Jeff is celebrating Memorial Day today (Happy Birthday, Jeff!), I will be next Friday (mental health day!), and Emily will the Friday after. In the meantime, the mischievous side of me wants to gift wrap everything on Jeff's side of our office. I'll definitely post pictures if that happens.

Wrap Up (Pictures that Didn't Fit into Stories)

She was going home sick with a fever, but could still smile!

I like when Brianne runs art. The kids get more physical activity.

I've been spotted!

I have no idea what is happening here.

Kids in the computer lab! Look at how nice it all is!

K-3rd grade gym games yesterday.

Coming Up Next...

End of the year party, Volunteer Fair at Cal Poly, and the new interns move in!

"Because Love is an Act of Courage, Not of Fear, Love is a Commitment to Others. No Matter Where the Oppressed are Found, the Act of Love is Commitment to Their Cause-- the Cause of Liberation." ~Paulo Freire

2014-05-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

Blue Screen of Death!

So, right after I saved my last blog entry, this happened...

I get a new (used) computer soon, thanks to University of La Verne and the anonymous donor who contributed the money toward technology! Thanks, guys! All the kids' computers are being installed and updated first, which is perfect, because it gives me time to prepare for the changeover.

Guest Presentation

One of our high school students came to us a few weeks ago and asked if she and her group would be able to give a presentation to our older students in the program, for a class. Unfortunately, her family moved this past weekend, which was quite a shock to everyone, but she still coordinated her group coming over to give the presentation. They educated our students on eating disorders, with some editing, in advance, from staff. I caught the tail end of it and I was pretty impressed with their presenting abilities. I could not have presented so well at their age. Or even in college!

Girl Troubles
One of our more troublesome junior high students came in dramatically on Monday, with woes of rejection by not one, but two different girls that day. One girl was just getting over a breakup with her boyfriend (so I told him he didn't want to be a rebound anyway) and the other just flat out rejected him, to which his response is, "So I hate her." I explained to him that that's not the best reaction to rejection, so we're working on it.

On Tuesday, the drama was surrounding our 2nd and 3rd graders. Apparently, one of the girls likes one of the boys, and she's not shy about it. But the boy likes a different girl. But that's not changing this girl's mind! Oh no! Well, I explained to the boy that him liking someone else doesn't stop her from liking him, and he didn't have to like her back, but he did have to be nice to her.

Art in Action
Monday's art project for our K-3rd graders was creating pinwheels. I wasn't able to be present for that portion of their day, but one of them did leave one behind (by accident).

It lives in the Sign In Rm now.

Tuesday was a very windy day. So as we were waiting for more kids to come, one of my girls decided to test the pinwheel! It took awhile, but we finally got it to work at the same time that I was recording. Enjoy!

I really hope that worked.

Some of our junior highers complained on Tuesday that the little kids get to do fun crafts, but they don't. So I figured it was a good craft for the 4th-6th graders to do on Wednesday. :-)

Group Pic
Tuesday, we also did group pictures! One of our awesome volunteers brought in his fancy camera and took several pictures for us, to be used on different occasions. Here's the one I took with my phone of our K-12th grade students in attendance that day. His pictures will be better.

This is the good one from my phone.

...and then something happened.

Wear Pink Wednesday
I was told that since the 10 year anniversary of Mean Girls was happening on Wednesday, if I didn't wear pink that day, "You can't sit with us!" So I remembered to wear pink and to tell my sister, who was volunteering that day. I did have to give at least one reminder that we are not, in fact, mean girls. But I think we may have an all girls "Mean Girls" viewing party at my house soon!

My House
Speaking of my house, I did more work this weekend. I'm starting to think it will never end. If that's the case, please no one tell me.

My plan was to finally clean out the last room in which everything was being thrown as I was unpacking. It was originally a guest bedroom/library, but it's devolved into a closet very quickly.

I needed to get stuff with which to organize it all first! So I spent more money than I wanted to at Big Lots and spent the rest of the day constructing furniture to have some place to store things. (There was next to no storage available in my bathroom before.)

Storage in the bathroom!

...AND in the bedroom, because I wasn't sure how much space I had in the bathroom.

Long story short, my plan for THIS weekend is to clean out the last room in which everything was being thrown as I was unpacking. :-/

Too Hot to Garden
It was VERY hot this week, but worse than the heat (which Miss Barb was planning on working around by keeping everyone in the shade and bringing lemonade), was the air quality because of the Etiwanda fire. It wasn't super close, we couldn't see plumes of smoke or anything, but the smell is everywhere and schools across several cities in between here and there didn't let kids out for recess because of it.

Luckily, Miss Barb is a master planner and her lesson for the day was easily moved inside. The kids happily got to eat food from the garden in an air conditioned room (we only have two, so it was a treat!).

And it was delicious!

Let There Be Light
Someone wrote a book about us!

Ok, not really. One of our former Summer Interns and current long-time volunteer wrote her senior thesis in part about her experiences with our kids and what she learned about the correlation between social justice and arts education while serving here (among other places). She gave us a copy, which I haven't had a chance to read all of yet, but so far, I like what I have read! She even dedicated it to "my students at Pomona Hope."

She took over Art with our 4th-6th graders earlier this semester to talk with them about their experiences and relating it to colored light filters which is used in stage lighting. After that, and not for the sake of her thesis, she used art time to teach those same students how to write their names with flashlights and a long-exposure capable camera. The results were pretty cool!

So, in honor of our wonderful volunteer and my former mentee, I'm breaking from my tradition of titling these posts with something to do about hope, and using her quote about love and commitment. Because, really, without love, what is hope? And as a self-proclaimed expert in other people's quotes, I'd have to say that this is a pretty good one.

“In All Things it is Better to Hope Than to Despair” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2014-04-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

We Got a Break!
We got Good Friday off! You have no idea how excited I was about this. I got my car fixed and tomatoes planted! I got to stay up late on Thursday night eating pizza! (I probably should have gone to a Maundy Thursday service, but I didn't leave work until 7, and after dealing with defiant Junior Highers, I don't think I was in the right mood. Glad Jesus forgives!)

Friday work

Took me (and Barb) all afternoon Saturday. Would never have finished without her.

Fundraising Update
If you look to the right side of my blog update, you should be able to see a handy thermometer showing my goal for monthly income on my fundraising and where it is now. I will update it as I am made aware of new monthly donations, so keep checking back!

My job is unique and challenging in that, while working as the Volunteer Coordinator and the Kids Coordinator at Pomona Hope, I'm also fundraising my own salary. Your money is going to good work. And every little bit helps, so don't forget to tell your friends! :-)

What to Do with Defiant Junior Highers...
I asked for tips a few weeks back about this. What we've ended up doing is something that I didn't remember doing before until we started it again recently, and then I remembered Emily using this same tactic to a couple of kids a few years ago! If they can't act they're age, they get to travel with the K-1st graders (who are usually far better behaved and less annoying).

Last Thursday was a double-whammy. I spent the last half hour of programs bouncing around between dealing with 2 different kids who decided to be smart alecs and push buttons or just completely ignore any authority figure. I had to get tough and take a phone away from one of them while having them both write Thank You cards to volunteers while they sat out away from the rest of their group and each other.

Weirdly, they came in Monday still on their guard and trying to cause problems again (because they were still mad at being punished for the last time they caused problems. Oh, kids.), but for the most part, after I treated them nicely, they settled down again. Tuesday, they seemed to be mostly okay with me. I hope they start to figure out that we're not here to butt heads with them, but to help them with their homework, listen when they need to talk about something important, and do our best to get them to do their best.

Messy Kids
On this past Wednesday, my 4th-6th graders left me the biggest mess I've seen them leave for a normal day all year, maybe all the time I've been coming here. I might have given them all a warning for it, but there's one student in the group who has been coming to us for years and has never gotten a warning. Ever. That's his claim to fame and something he's proud enough of to step up and take control of the group when I even threaten giving the group a warning for something. Besides that, he mostly likes to fly under the radar. And HE didn't leave a mess himself, his area was clean. He just didn't help his group clean up either. So, they got to write apology letters to Art (our janitor) and the Pomona Hope staff as well, before they were allowed to go to gym games. Some of them were pretty cute. I'm hoping they got the message and won't do that again.

Garden Workshop
We have SO many kids who love going to the garden that I get asked at least once a day if that's the day they're going (I don't know why they haven't caught on yet that it's on Thursdays... even when I tell them so). Last week, I peeked in when they were picking radishes.

He is way more excited about radishes than I ever was.

Photobombed by radishes. Really?!

I have no idea what's happening, but it's cute.

Sorry, they're just so cute!

This week, they learned about Rosemary (it's uses, history, lore it's used in, etc.) and then started to make a Rosemary vinegar, which will spend the next week or so getting heated by the sun until it's ready.

I'm a little jealous.

When did we get this table and chairs set? It's adorable!

She's loving it.

Volunteer Appreciation Week!
This week was Volunteer Appreciation Week at Pomona Hope (although it may stretch out a couple weeks). Our volunteers are wonderful to spend their free time coming in to work with our kids, so we want to be sure they feel appreciated!

This year, their gift was a T-shirt! The La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church ministry group for Pomona Hope did all the research and design and ordered them for us (and covered most of the cost!). We've had t-shirts in the past, but never so many color options (there was black, a light blue, kelly green, paprika, and another shade of red to choose from)!

This evening we are also having a BBQ for volunteers and their families at the home of our new Board Chair, who was kind enough to put this event on for us. I think he likes doing this kind of stuff, he's definitely got the yard for it.

"Your Hopes, Dreams and Aspirations Are Legitimate. They Are Trying to Take You Airborne, Above the Clouds, Above the Storms, If You Only Let Them." ~William James

2014-04-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

Still No Break
I feel like we hit the ground running these past couple weeks too! The kids are back, and better behaved than I remember, which is great! Especially since we've been trying to keep up with all the other things coming up! Maybe the week they spent away helped them realize how good they have it here. (One of our Junior Highers started being a smart alec the first Monday back and was quickly shut down by one of his friends. That was awesome!)

In the meantime, Emily and one of our Board Members spent much of last week interviewing potential interns for our Summer Enrichment Program (we had 10 people apply!!!). So far it sounds like they wish they could hire all of them, but can only hire 5. I'm excited about this because it means that they can run the summer program while I prepare for the next school year, which will hopefully start out much smoother than this one! It also means I don't have to feel guilty when I go to Kenya this summer and miss the beginning of the SEP.

Emily has also been finishing grants and putting together a report for the Annual Board retreat last weekend. So I've been editing grants and putting together data for her to interpret and make pretty.

I've also been juggling schedules a bit, as we have several new high school volunteers. I'm almost to the point of not knowing what to do with them all! Which I'm not complaining about in the least! Just explaining that it's taking a little longer to figure out scheduling every morning now.

Attack of the Nerds
This is all game related, but I hope it continues. Our Junior High students almost beg to play Magic: The Gathering every day. Last Tuesday, my 4th-6th graders were fighting over who got to play chess. I had to get out another chess board for them. I don't even have words for how gleeful this makes me. Thanks, kids.

Luckily, we have multiple sets.

Kindergartner vs. Junior

They don't just play board games anymore. They've been playing a smartphone version of Charades during their snack time. One of our newer high school volunteers brought it in and they love it (and her). These are junior highers actually acting like they like something!

More Teacher Contact
Report cards are coming in for their second trimester, and we're finding a few kids are struggling. One student in particular was given several of my cards to hand out to teachers, because he is normally a good student and is very bright, but it turns out he has not been doing all his work (though he tells us he has). So I've made contact with his Homeroom teacher to work out a deal and a communication schedule. We're gonna gang up on him and make sure he improves. :-)

More Kids Asking for Extra Help
With the second trimester report cards out, we've had more kids asking for extra help (outside of their homework) in specific subjects, to understand well enough to bring their grades up. I now have a Common Core website for 6th grade math that I'm printing extra work from for one student, I'm in contact with at least 2 teachers, one principal, and several parents, and I have 5 students staying after the program most days to either make extra sure they're finished with their homework or to improve their reading skills (and if I'm lucky, I'll have one more volunteer there with me to help give the extra attention they all require).

On the bright side, one of the students who started staying later this week to work on reading skills has already gone from 53 words per minute (WPM) to 89 wpm, in a matter of 2 sessions! I think it's mostly a matter of confidence, with a touch of needed vocabulary expansion on the side. The curriculum provided to us for free by a former volunteer (who worked to develop it himself) definitely helped a lot!

Pomona Beautification Day!
CalPoly sent us 7 awesome volunteers for Pomona Beautification Day last Saturday, so I got to be the point person for organizing them and telling them what they were doing. We had them clear out a room that was pretty full of random stuff on the 3rd floor of the building that we're hoping to use as a classroom next year. Looking at it before they came in, I would have had morale failure if I had to do it by myself. But those volunteers had it cleared out faster than I expected. The room was way bigger than I had even realized!

They may have only come for one day, but they were great. I'm really glad we had a couple of engineering students among them, since there were some really big, heavy desks. Moving them was an engineering feat unto itself (and that's coming from the daughter of 2 engineers). Well done, guys!

Too big for door...

Too big for hallway

It's on a trolley which is rolling over plywood and cardboard boxes to protect the floor.

I promise I have more pictures, but they're all on my camera, and I'm not sure where the cord to upload them is in the little bit of the house that is still not unpacked. I'll post them later!

Safety Talk
This Wednesday, we had a Pomona Police Officer come in to talk to the kids about staying safe while walking anywhere in town. For the younger kids, I understand they talked about the basics: don't talk to strangers, look both ways before you cross, etc. I was with our Junior High group for the day, so they got a little bit from Officer Carrigan, and most of the Safety presentation was from a representative of another nonprofit based out of First Baptist Church of Pomona about human trafficking. The kids listened carefully, and we'll have a discussion time with them about it next week.

Garden Update
Miss Barb seems to be having a lot of fun with the workshops. She keeps saying that she thinks whatever she came up with will be boring to the kids, but they seem to be enjoying it. This week, one group planted a Butterfly Garden, while another made compost tea. If you've never heard of that last one, you're not suppose to drink it. Just FYI. It's actually a natural alternative to pesticides and it gives the plants extra nutrition! (See Barb? I pay attention!)

Explaining the compost tea.

Last week they may have talked about Earth Day

Sorry for the Delay
I didn't quite get to publishing an update last week because I may have had a concussion. I was mostly finished, but it was time to start the Math Workshop, and one of the kids kicked a soccer ball and nailed me in the head (completely by accident!). Took me a while to realize that what I was feeling was not just the burning sensation of being struck by a soccer ball at high velocity. So I spent the first hour after that teaching about Ancient Egyptian math and how lucky we are that we have zeroes, fraction values besides just unit fractions, and the ability to use a symbol of some kind in the place of an unknown variable. Perhaps they will appreciate math a little more now. And I really only had to ask them to slow down their speech once or twice. (Okay, I'm willing to admit that maybe I should have seen a doctor, but it seemed like a lot of work that I didn't have energy for, and I still didn't have any proof of insurance-- and not for lack of trying!)

Then Kevin took care of me the rest of the evening.

And For a Moment of Awesome
The kindergartner in this picture dropped some of his stuff (I guess he was overloaded with homework and snacks), so 2 older kids and a volunteer rushed to help him clean up. <3

"Sanity May Be Madness But the Maddest of All is to See Life As It Is and Not As It Should Be." ~Don Quixote

2014-03-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

Spring Break, Part 2
We started off OUR Spring Break with a Car Show! Monday brought the beginning of 3 days straight of crashing college campuses, Tuesday I spent the day un-decorating classrooms so that night and Wednesday volunteers could paint them, and Thursday I helped out with the last Parent Orientation of the school year. This Spring Break, I kinda felt like I was along for the ride, but I was just fine with that. But having reviewed everything we've done this week, I have to ask: What's Spring Break?

Car Show
Gold's Barber Shop organized their 1st Annual Car Show and we were the charity of choice! We got to have a table out among the other booths, so people knew what they were supporting with a portion of their entry fee. Emily, Jeff, and I split the time our table was up, and a few board members came out to help us, as well as some awesome volunteers lending their face painting abilities to the occasion. We had a whole stack of Pomona Hope keychains ready to give out, as well as pens, popcorn, flyers, and, of course, face painting. Several people came to our table to find out what we were all about and ended up just giving us cash right there! It was pretty cool, having only heard of us that one time.

This lovely Board Member came to hang out with me, then spent most of the time she was there making popcorn while I painted faces.

I got there at noon to relieve Emily and Jeff, but our face painter at the time also had to catch a ride home with Jeff, while the next one wasn't scheduled to come for another hour. And wouldn't you know it, just as he was walking away, a little girl walked up wanting her face painted. I was standing at the table assessing the situation, and asked her if she wanted one of the two things I felt comfortable enough in my abilities to paint halfway decently: "Do you want a butterfly?" "Sure!"

Then her family followed, and a whole bunch of kids, some of whom seemed to know each other. The requests got increasingly more difficult as time went on, which made me work even slower, which made the line longer. By the time my relief arrived, I had accumulated a line so long that it didn't ever actually disappear until we were packing up to leave hours later. (File this under Reasons Why Liz Cannot Be a Face Painter) For a good hour or so after my relief came, we had 2 people painting faces and the line still did not die down! And they did a WAY better job (and faster) than I did.

Miss Barb stopped by to take pictures of cars, then posted these on Facebook. :-)

Proof I'm a real person!

She wanted to be a skeleton, but I didn't want to mess up her lipstick. And then she wanted a flower on each cheek.

My savior! She's wonderful!

See?! TWO! I wasn't kidding! They both were so amazing I bet the kids that came to me regret coming so early.

Campus Crash
Jeff has been planning Campus Crash for MONTHS. It's a great opportunity for our high school students to see what different colleges look like. These kids gave up three days of their Spring Break to hang out with us and see the colleges. At the end of the day on Wednesday, Jeff came into our office and told me how genuine our only male student sounded as he thanked Jeff for taking him along this week.

The event lasted 3 days, but I only went to Monday: Azusa Pacific University (APU) and the Claremont Colleges (5C's). It was SUPER fun (our kids are awesome and the tour guides were great), but at the end of the day I was exhausted. I managed to make it through dinner and a short movie before passing out on the couch while Kevin and his friends played Magic: The Gathering for 4 hours. I have no idea how Jeff and the kids made it another 2 days!

So please enjoy the pictures I remembered to take on our journey with 6 high school students across 7 campuses in 7 hours.

The games you play in Christian schools... Sadly, THIS is what reminded me to take pictures.

Showing us around APU's Theological Department.

Professor/Pastor/ Reverend Paul Boles, thinking about what else to tell us in that hallway.

COFFEE MAKER! Wait... no... (Science Building, West Campus)

He made his own path a lot, which often caused hilarity to ensue.

English Department Courtyard

The bridge outside the Prayer Chapel.

All 3 of Jeff's former students who attend APU found him while we were there! (This is two of them.)

Review of what was learned at APU. They will now never forget "The Shire"

Brianne's friend took us to visit Cafe con Leche at Scripps, where Latina/Chicana students could find resources specific to their needs.

Despite it being an all female school, he learned to look for similar resources wherever he went.

We got a really neat, in-depth look at Scripps.

They have lots of courtyards.

And we found one of our other volunteers waiting for class to start (he goes to Mudd!)

The mural in the background remains unfinished because the artist passed away before it was completed.

Inside the theater Brianne works for.

The outside was designed by a native of Pomona.

New tour guide for CMC: volunteer and President of the CMC Student Body!

He liked the reflecting pool.

View (of the Library) from the top

We're on a roof!

View from our Board Member's office.

Not bad!

There's that reflecting pool again.

Almost the whole group...

He tried to jump over and got stuck. This is him desperately trying to get down before I can take the picture.

Walls made of White Board?

He's creating a masterpiece... right?

Right?!

Well, in his defense, he did remember the hyphen.

Review of the 5C's- Students earned prizes for answering questions accurately. They were even taking notes!

Repainted Rooms!
This Tuesday and Wednesday we had groups of people from Baseline Community Church come to help out with adding a fresh coat of paint to some of our classrooms. The need was desperate, and they delivered.:-)

To prepare for them, I spent most of Tuesday pulling posters off of walls in the rooms and moving furniture around to make it easier for the incoming help. Emily stayed late with the group who came Tuesday, and I stayed with the Wednesday group. Yay Teamwork!

Homework Room at the beginning of Wednesday

How the back hallway looked overnight.

Study Hall

More hallway

Painting the Jr High Rm.

This was the big task on Wednesday

Making it look easy.

Wednesday's group! They finished up the amazing work of Tuesday's group.

Parent Orientation
Thursday marked the final Parent Orientation to add new students to our program for the school year. We tend to get a bunch of parents calling asking to enroll their students around report card time. Not much space for new students at the moment, but if they're on the wait list, they can get into the Summer Program!

Luckily, for me, one volunteer forgot we weren't in session, so she helped out with testing the students while I continued to work on other things. Happy accidents are still happy.

Computer Giveaway!
Since we have new computers at Pomona Hope, we decided to give away the computers that are still somewhat functional to our families. We gave them a flyer at the end of last week saying to come in this Thursday between 5:30 and 6:30, first come, first served. As families were leaving the Parent Orientation just before 5 pm, we already had a line of 4 families waiting to come in!

As the first family came out of a different door, one of the waiting boys saw them coming out and squealed and danced in delight. He was clearly excited to have any kind of computer.

Coming Soon...
This is not a Pomona Hope sponsored or affiliated event, but I do think that it is something worth attending if you have the time and care about peace and safety in Pomona.

Consider joining the rally for Peace!

In Other News...
I got my first haircut in 2 years and 3 months! Not even a trim, guys. I was going to ask if I could come in on Friday, but she could only do Wednesday morning... which turned out to be perfect since I was set to work noon to 8 pm for painting purposes!

Why do I let my hair get so long?!

And then I worked until 8.

I think I'll take tomorrow off.

“May You Have Enough Happiness to Make You Sweet, Enough Trials to Make You Strong, Enough Sorrow to Keep You Human Enough Hope to Make You Happy.” ~ Victor Hugo

2014-03-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

Spring Break! (Part One)
This week was Spring Break for the Claremont Colleges, where we get a pretty good percentage of our volunteers. Many of them were out of town for the week for some (much needed) R&R. I thought that we'd be really hurting for volunteers, but thankfully, many of our volunteers were still able to come at their regular times, AND some were even able to come longer or more often to help us make up the difference! We had plenty of volunteers for everything! Thank you SO MUCH to the volunteers who were able to come in this week to help out! You're wonderful!

Todd came in to help out Monday! Then he was roped into a game of air hockey where his opponent likes to cheat.

Next week, there will be no program, but we'll be taking many of our high school students on field trips to colleges in the area. Jeff came up with and planned the whole thing, so next week I'll be going on the field trips the day they go to APU and the Claremont Colleges. (I hope I don't ruin my half of the APU tour!) Updates to come!

Car Show!

Pomona Hope will be the Charity of Choice this Saturday, March 22 for Stay Gold Barber Shop's 1st Annual Car and Bike Show.

We'll be at/ near: 168 E 1st St, Pomona, CA 91766.

Please stop by and show your support! It's all free! Come! Enjoy live music, great old cars and bikes, and mingle with a fun crowd!

Pomona Hope will be there from 8 am-4 pm, giving out popcorn and PH Keychains and offering face painting for the kiddos. Sometime mid-day Jeff will be giving a brief intro to Pomona Hope.

Board Games

After last week's blog post, my dad asked if the kids also liked another game he had purchased at the same time as Ivanhoe, at which point I had to tell him that both copies of that game actually went with me to Kenya for the girls at the orphanage there to play. So he basically said, "No problem!" and picked up another 2 copies of "No Thanks!" at the game store he frequents on Saturday.

Monday, I brought in the games and basically forced a few kids to play a round with me. For some reason, our kids are both perpetually bored and hate trying anything new (we're working on it). Once we finished the game, the ones who played wanted to play again and a couple more wanted to join in. I gave up my spot, and they kept going until snack time was over.

Here's the kids playing Ivanhoe later in the day (during a time specifically set aside for Board Games).

Bible Study Party
This week marked the end of the bible study curriculum for the year for our two oldest groups. The volunteers who have been running it threw a party for the kids in their studies. I got to help out with the party for the 4th-6th graders.

I was hoping for less of a prison-looking photo, but I kinda had to threaten a warning if they didn't all look at the camera at the same time.

This is what they actually wanted to do.

Taking pictures of people taking pictures.

He's offering you some chicken.

Some of our wonderful bible study volunteers!

They also gave out surveys for the kids to take and have already sent us the answers! Here are some of my favorites:

1) How have your thoughts about God or Jesus changed since coming to Bible Study?

They have teached me new things and easier ways to see life
That God has your back no matter what and he has trusted you
My thoughts about God/Jesus changed tremendously by coming to Bible Study because now I know that Jesus was very caring and was generous to everyone
I have less space in my brain

2) Has your desire to know God and have a relationship with Him increased since coming to Bible Study?

Yes it has because I got closer to getting to know God
My relationship on knowing God has increased because now that I know something about him I want to know more
For me, it has increased now that I know more about him
My desire to be with him grew because I trusted him and he responded to my prayers

3) What did you learn in Bible Study that was helpful at home or at school?

To listen to my parents.
I learned to love someone without judging and it has helped in school
To be who you are and not to be who you want to be
I had learn that being greedy isn't going to be helpful in life and it will make me not be able to love
I learned to not be mean to others, but to be nice and honest, and when I'm honest I shouldn't say hard things that will hurt their feelings

Thank you to Lifesong Community Church, and especially the volunteers they've sent us, who brought us this opportunity to reach out to our kids so they could learn about the Person of Jesus!

Fundraising
I sent out another letter last week and I've already received responses! Thank you so much for your support!

If you know anyone else who might be interested in helping out, they can go here for a one-time donation with a cool progress bar, or here to set up one-time or recurring (yes, please!) donations.

Who wouldn't want to work with these cute kids?

In Other Random News...
Last week, my dog had an allergic reaction, and trips to the emergency vet are expensive. On Saturday, Kevin and I rode our bikes down to the local Farmer's Market and bought the most amazing Rosemary Garlic Sourdough bread, many of the ingredients for a delicious dinner, and my 4th box of Do-Si-Dos for GS cookie season from one of my kids/dealers. Later I finished reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green while I waited for my friend, Amy, to come over to eat pie and hang out. My alternative was to unpack, and I want the unpacking elves to do that for me. The odds get better the longer I wait, right?

At some point this week, I made it up to season 4 of Doctor Who on Hulu (that is my cable). But it's hard to tell when, because I turn it on at bedtime and promptly fall asleep.

Oh! Did I mention a couple weeks ago I rode my new bike to work and didn't hit-- or get hit by-- anything? Kevin bought it for me for our anniversary and took me to Santa Barbara (for the first time ever!) to ride for the first time in 20 years. While that part was a little scary, it was SOOOO nice to not have to worry about real world, grown-up things for a couple days.

New question for God: Just... how?!

See? I don't JUST work all the time. But I have to admit, these past few weeks, I've done better than most in recent memory at budgeting my time to be more balanced.

"Things Never Go So Well That One Should Have No Fear, and Never So Ill That One Should Have No Hope." ~Turkish proverb

2014-03-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Tragedy in the Neighborhood
A friend of some of our students died last week. From what I understand, he had some kind of tumor. He didn't attend here, but I heard 4 or 5 of our students talking about it with each other last Thursday in the Garden as they were walking to the plots. These kids weren't all the same grade level or group in our program, or even at the same school, but they knew him, and they were becoming kind of a support group for each other. I'm glad that we gave them a place to talk it out with each other, however informally. It's still better than not getting to talk to anyone at all.

Miss Barb leading Garden Workshop

Everyone loves Junior

Sometimes, Math is Hard
Tuesday, while the youngest group was taking their 2-minute math tests, one of our 1st graders raised her hand to ask for help (which they usually don't do, since it's a test, for which they only have 2 minutes). I overheard as a volunteer went over to help her and she asked, "How do I do this one? [Pointing at a 13+9 problem] I ran out of fingers."

It took all my restraint to NOT tell her to take off her shoes.

Sidewalk Chalk
We've been opening early this week (and will next week as well), since the elementary schools are getting out early. Monday, for the extra hour we had at the beginning of programs, we had the kids play in the church courtyard with sidewalk chalk. I grabbed a piece and took it over to a shady area to draw a hopscotch court (per Emily's suggestion). A few kids followed me with their own pieces of chalk and started drawing things behind me as I worked backwards. Our student, whom I mentioned in my last post, who doesn't speak a whole lot of English, was drawing closest to me, and I ended up next to him after a few hopscotch squares. He eventually looked up as I was getting closer to the end, and saw what I was drawing. At that point, he dropped what he was doing and jumped up excitedly to stand at the beginning of the court, squirming while waiting for me to finish drawing. As soon as I was done, he started skipping through. Other students (who don't even speak Spanish) joined him, and they all worked together to extend the court and add numbers to the boxes ("Liz, you did it wrong!").

Other students joined us in the massive shady area between the education building, out of which we operate, and the sanctuary, to draw whatever pictures they wanted. Apparently, some of them colored their artwork in really dark (thick? What do you call it when it's pastel-colored chalk?). The next day, there was still enough of it for one of our girls to rub her hands all over it, and then rub it all over her face. I don't know why, but she was really proud of it. And ultimately, it was cute.

New Games
My dad really likes all kinds of board/card/computer games, and that's the environment I grew up in. So it makes me a little sad whenever the kids get a chance to play board games and they don't want to try anything new, despite the fact that they've gotten older (4th-10th grade), because they already know how to play the games they learned in 1st or 2nd grade (I'm looking at you, UNO, Sorry, and Life). Some of our kids don't even know how to play Yahtzee!

As you can imagine, I can see the good that comes out of board games: They teach you the importance of rules, strategy, taking turns. They can also teach you anything from colors and numbers to heavier math, rule interpretation, history, science, etc. (all depends on the game).

I mentioned in past posts that our Optional Homework Hour, which is held 3 days a week, had kind of become a chess club for students waiting for their siblings to finish their homework during that time. But chess can be hard to play with 3 or more people. At some point in the past couple months, Kevin started bringing "Magic: The Gathering" decks down to teach the kids that game, and a few of them are fascinated with it. They want to be able to buy cards for the game from our store. We're working on this.

A year or so ago, my dad donated a couple copies of a game that most people haven't heard of called, "Ivanhoe". It's kind of like a cross between Uno, poker, and BS all dressed up to look Medieval. I've tried a couple times to get kids to play it, but time was usually limited to 30 minutes, and by the time I got it out and reviewed and explained the rules, it was more like 5 minutes of game time. BUT with an hour, I managed to get a few kids to play it long enough to get hooked, who then introduced it to more kids in the program during times that they have completed their homework and are designated for board game activities. Now I have a few junior highers asking if they can play it every day, which is a good way to motivate at least those few to do their homework quickly and accurately (I told them those were the conditions). They've also been asking if they could buy them in the store.

Ivanhoe today

Kevin teaching Ivanhoe

Yahtzee!!!

New Computers Set-Up!
As I type this, we have a team from Home Depot, who we linked up with through one of our wonderful volunteers. They are installing new blinds in our computer lab, taking out the old computers, desks, and chairs, and setting up new computers, desks and chairs. This team is putting me to shame with their sheer strength. I watched a young woman smaller than me carry two bulky computers out of the room no problem! I may be able to lift the weight of two, but they're so big, I get nervous lifting them at the same time, because I'm afraid that they're so awkward I'll drop them.

These folks are awesome! And with the new computers, we'll be able to have more than 6 kids working on something at a time! (That seemed to be the only computers functional and connecting to the internet recently.) Thanks to everyone who has donated to support the new technology!!!

Old chairs on their way out.

My Homework Room is a little bit in disarray.

Some of our awesome helpers!

More awesome helpers.

I'm really into candid shots.

Mid-work shot: old desks/set up

Old desks and room arrangement

Old desks

Where all the old stuff went. We actually use this room...

New everything!!!

Jeff's happy!

Fundraising
If you are reading this as one of my supporters, I want to thank you sooo much! This is my attempt to keep you up to date regularly on what's going on. And if you know anyone else who might have a heart for what Pomona Hope is doing, and what I am doing here, please send this link to them for one-time donations: http://pomonahope.causevox.com/.

If you are checking out what's going on here, I'll tell you now that this entire program is run with a staff of 3 people and a whole lot of wonderful volunteers. Being one of the staff, I have to fundraise my own salary to continue working here. Please consider donating to the link above, or regularly here, and include "Kids Coordinator" in the comments box.

Thank you again!

"The Grand Essentials of Happiness Are: Something to Do, Something to Love, and Something to Hope For." ~George Washington Burnap

2014-03-07T08:20:00.000-08:00

Dr. Seuss Day!
In case you don't have or work with kids, you should know that the schools around here (and maybe all over the country?) now celebrate Dr. Seuss Day around his birthday. Where was this when *I* was a kid?! I love this idea! It's a way to get kids to read more at school and at home, and some schools celebrate by having kids dress in funny outfits or something throughout the week. The closest elementary school to Pomona Hope invited us (the staff) to come and read to kids in the classrooms last Friday.

It was pouring rain and there were flash flood and tornado warnings in effect for much of the weekend (we ARE in California), but we braved the storm and joined a whole bunch of important people (it was really an honor to go!) at the elementary school to read books in classrooms. We went to two different classrooms over the course of 2 hours.

I came prepared with several of the Dr. Seuss books my mom got me for Christmas (she gave me the whole set!). Emily started of our sessions in each class, reading books she grew up with, and then Jeff and I each got to read one too. The kids really seemed to enjoy having new people in the classes. To the first class, I read a book I'd never heard of before I received it, "A Good Day for UP." It was written by Dr. Seuss and illustrated by someone else. It really seemed to go over well with those kids. The second class was a little more exciting, because one of our kids was a student in that class. As soon as we walked in, he was super excited to see us. To that class, I read "There's a Wocket in My Pocket." And the class was REALLY engaged. Especially after I started asking them which words rhymed. About halfway through the book, one girl pointed out that all the rhyming words are BIG (in all caps). "Really?! So you guys have been cheating this whole time?!"

I think Pomona Hope is gonna need more Dr. Seuss books.

Hopeful Dreams of a Future

About a month ago, I had a dream about our one student who came to us at the beginning of the year speaking no English. He is currently in our youngest group of students (K-1st grade). In the dream, he was years older, maybe a young teenager. He dressed like he was emo and had long, side-swept bangs with a blue streak running through them. (I have NO idea why these details stuck out in my mind.) I don't remember at all what we were saying, but I remember being excited about how perfect his English was. Not in the way you learn it in school, but perfect conversational English, fitting right in with all the other kids and no indication he ever struggled. For some reason, I've remembered this dream for weeks.

This Monday, I was working with his group, and it was a transition time (when the students have a chance to use the restroom and get a drink of water as we move to the next workshop). Students who don't need to do either seem to like to use that time to ask me questions or tell me about their day, so it gets a little busy for me, as they all want to talk at the same time and sometimes they get impatient. I heard a voice next to me, about halfway through transition time asking, "Can I go to the bathroom?" I turned to see that it was the student I dreamed about! He had said it so perfectly that I didn't expect it to be him standing there. I let him go, of course. He didn't actually need to ask, since that was his chance. But I really wanted to hug him, and maybe cry a little.

Art Time Fun

During the Art Project on Monday, the kids were coloring leprechauns. First, I tried getting them to guess what it would be, and NONE OF THEM knew what a leprechaun was! This is sad for my people. So I explained to them about the magical, short, ginger people who hide pots of gold at the end of rainbows, and then had them color and cut out their leprechauns. Many of the students took the coloring very seriously and spent the entire project time doing just that.

Working on Leprechauns on Monday

But a couple of our kids finished early. The kid who is on the left of the picture below finished first. He is usually very shy, but this day was very proud of his art project and showed it to me. Here's how the conversation went...
Me: Oh! Good job! It looks like he's dressed for a party!
Him: He is.
Me: Where is this party?
Him: In the mountains.
Me: Very cool. Who else is going to the party?
Him: Everyone.
Me: Like who?
Him: Other magic people.
Me: If it's in the mountains, is the abominable snowman there?
Him: Yes.
Me: And who else? Maybe the tooth fairy?
Him: Yes, they're there. But no bad guys.
Me: Ok, no bad guys. He's a nice abominable snowman.
Then he smiled and started to play with the boy on the right in the picture.

They're dressed for a party!

Everyone is going! (Except bad guys)

They began walking around their classroom talking about the party.

It was a long journey to the party in the mountain.

And then for some reason, the leprechaun went flat.

Children in motion are blurry.

But he got better and went home with his new friends.

I love these kids. :-)

"Never Talk Defeat. Use Words Like Hope, Belief, Faith, Victory." ~Norman Vincent Peale

2014-02-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

It was another short week, because of the President's Day holiday (which the staff got off of work! YAY!). Here's a few things going on this week.

New Student!

We have a new 5th grader! He started yesterday and he seems really sweet. Unfortunately, I was coordinating, so I didn't get to spend a lot of time with him, but I did check in occasionally, and it seemed like one of our very regular, expected volunteers was taking him under his wing. It's no wonder the kids think of this volunteer as like an older brother. :-)

ATTITUDES!

Our older kids especially are getting a little too entitled for our liking. Trying to find loopholes in the rules. Complaining about something to the point that several of them refuse to participate (which often makes it difficult, if not impossible, for everyone else to participate!). And when we do give them options and follow through on some of their choices, they complain about that!

How do you deal with junior high attitudes? You know the ones: Where it's cool to think that nothing is cool? I know it's a very important, sensitive, life directing time, but it's also very annoying! Junior High teachers, school administrators, and leaders of all kinds have always had my utmost respect. They are very brave individuals.

Random Guy-- Encouraging Hope

Yesterday I was coordinating and it was the day for our Garden Workshop. I walked a Kindergarten-aged student who came late over at one point, and I noticed an older guy watching us from his car. As I walked away from the Garden after dropping the kid off, and I saw that this guy was now out of his car. It looked like he was waiting for someone in the neighboring apartments, and watching the class just because it was the only thing to see in the neighborhood. This guy was middle-aged, bigger, wearing a tank top, a baseball cap, and a lot of tattoos. I greeted him on my way out of the garden, making eye-contact so he knew that I was watching. And then he turned out to be really friendly! He started talking about how great it was that we were doing that for the kids. He mentioned that he grew up in Pomona and has lived in San Dimas for 25 years now, because he had to get away. I told him I did the opposite.

But he seemed really encouraged by what we were doing, and kept saying that he thought that the reason so many kids join gangs in the area is because they don't get the love that they need at home, so it was good that we were offering that love to the neighborhood kids, just in case any of them are missing that love.

Took this picture immediately after the conversation.

That conversation, which started out potentially scary, ended up putting me in a good mood AND gave me a lot of hope for our kids' futures.

Fundraising Campaign
Is going well! But I still need about $900 more dollars coming in monthly (on a regular basis... it really is easier to calculate that way). Please, please PLEASE share either of the two links below with your friends!

For easy, one-time donations: http://pomonahope.causevox.com/

To sign up for recurring donations, or just one time with no extra frills (directly through our website): http://www.pomonahope.org/donate/donate-online/
But for this one they need to remember to type "Kids Coordinator" in the comments box!

THANK YOU!!!!

"Hope Secretly Feeds and Strengthens Promise." ~Sri Chinmoy

2014-02-14T18:15:00.000-08:00

This week went by fast! I don't know if it was because of the fact that we only had kids for two days, that I was frantically trying to catch up after being home sick last week, that I had two volunteer trainings, or because of house stuff (plumbers, electricians, moving tomorrow, in theory), but there just wasn't enough time.

Oh but first,

Happy Valentine's Day! / Singles Awareness Day! / Arizona Statehood Day! / Anna Howard Shaw Day! / Birthday?

Sick! Yuck.
Unfortunately, I had to stay home sick last week on the day that the first of several volunteer training sessions happened. I woke up that Wednesday morning at 4 with a 101.3 fever. Yuck! I felt so bad about not being able to go in, since I knew they were already short on volunteers and there was a volunteer training which *I* was supposed to be running (and, luckily, had already prepared for), so I still did the volunteer schedules (mostly because it would have been more work for me to remember what all was happening and type it out, than it would have been for me to just add and subtract names from the pre-made schedule, but partly because I still couldn't sleep). In a rare moment (for me) of getting things done early, I had the schedules finished before I was even supposed to start work that day! Which was great, because then I took NyQuil and fell asleep for the rest of the day.

Trainings
Speaking of volunteer trainings, Emily took over that first one for me. I'm so glad she was able to do that! How did she do this by herself all those years?! I don't remember the program closing because she was sick very often.

Anyway, I did 2 more trainings this week, although one was kind of an accident. No one had officially signed up for Monday, so I wasn't expecting to actually train anyone that day. But one person whose emails back and forth with me were left off somewhat ambiguously did come, so I trained her. And man am I glad I did! She really seemed to pick up on everything quickly! I'll think she'll be a great addition to our volunteers. And I realized that it was also nice to have the practice before going into the training with several people the next day.

The second training was Tuesday, and it included 2 returning volunteers and 3 new volunteers! We actually ended early, and since their rides weren't coming until the advertised time of completion, we got to hang out for awhile. I really like them!

Jeff also trained several new high school students that same day, and one came to help out the next day! He was so excited about it! And his coming was actually a huge help, since at one point, I was the only adult in the room with our K-3rd graders. They were really well-behaved that day (I think they took pity on me), but it was still nice to have the extra set of hands.

All that was to say that I'm really excited about all the new volunteers, and they seemed excited too.

House Stuff
Plumbers
Electricians
Packing
Cleaning
Organizing
Constructing Bookcases

I don't want to actually move. I just want all my stuff to magically be right where I want it in the new house. And clean and organized. Let's pray for that miracle to happen, shall we?

Also, moving day is tomorrow.

Fund Raising
I have spammed many people on Facebook, and I am truly sorry for that, but I wanted to be sure everyone saw the need for donations. Facebook is weird about who actually sees what posts on their newsfeed, but the messages usually go through.

I've had a great response to the fund raising attempts! Thank you so much to all of you who have donated! It means so much to me, and it also means that I can still help with the kids!

I only need another $900 per month consistently. That number looks bigger written than it did in my head. But honestly, it's less than what I had to raise before! :-)

But if you want to share something with your friends, I don't mind at all: Send them here, please!

Funny Story
I've mentioned before that a wonderful group of people, led by a former volunteer, thankfully took over creating the art curriculum for the Troopers and Braves (K-3rd grade) for me this year. Angels!

This week, in honor of Valentine's Day, they baked another bunch of cookies, all heart-shaped, to be decorated during the art portion of the day on Wednesday.

Well, silly me, I didn't look at the folder that they gave me at the beginning of the month which included a coloring page for the kids to complete once they finished decorating their cookies. The decoration part only took about 5 minutes. After that, I improvised.

Since there weren't quite enough cookies for all the kids to have 2, they each only got one. When they were done, I got out another one and asked them how we should decorate Kevin's (my boyfriend, who volunteers with them a lot) cookie. The result is below.

Mine is on the left. I am not silly enough to let the kids choose what goes on it.

When we were done with Kevin's cookie, there was still time and a whole bunch of Red Hots left, so they all went on the cookie that the kids made for Junior (another awesome volunteer whom the kids think of as a big brother). Unfortunately, no picture. Just picture one of the above cookies piled to the point of overflow with Red Hots.

Workshops
Today is the first Friday workshop in partnership with the dA Center for the Arts in Pomona. They're coming to teach our junior high and high school students about art from all over the world. It should be starting any minute now.

My Friday workshop (the Math/Art for 4th-6th grade) is going well. Last week was sparsely populated because I was sick before that. I think the kids expected I wouldn't come. I've found that they like researching things for themselves the best. They'll complain at first, but when I tell them that all they have to do is learn about stuff in a certain subject and look for something that's interesting, or a quick answer to a question, they get really involved in learning all about whatever subject it is.

A rare photo of the kid in the middle.

He's catching up... hanging out with his little brother.

Three weeks ago they broke into groups and had to share their answers with each other. Each group was assigned two ancient civilizations for which they were supposed to find how to write the numbers 1-10 in that language. Two weeks ago, they started trying to figure out whether the Ark really could hold all those animals, based on the measurements given in the Bible. Hopefully, by the end of today they'll have a definitive answer. And luckily, they're the ones doing the math. ;-)

Bible story for the K-3rd grade... guess which one!

Rosie comes to work with me sometimes when there's no kids.
She hates my office.

The whole quote: "Hope knows no fear. Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss. Hope secretly feeds and strengthens promise." ~ Sri Chinmoy

Seemed appropriate.

“Hope is a Force of Nature. Don't Let Anyone Tell You Different.” ~Jim Butcher

2014-02-06T14:18:00.000-08:00

So... I bought a house.

Anyone who can find this place is invited to the housewarming party (TBD)

It's a Miracle
I obviously did not do it on my own (it wasn't even my idea originally), but with the help of my dad, my amazing real estate agent, who has basically adopted me, even my co-workers, who were ready to cover for me when I had to drop everything immediately to take care of whatever crazy thing came up next (seriously, my real estate agent even admitted that this was one for the books), I bought a house.

This is also why the blog has been quiet. I'm pretty sure I was losing my mind, and even if I had the time to sit down and write, I don't think you would have needed to read what I had to say when I was in that state. But now that it's over, I'm just realizing that it really was the house drama. I didn't think it was, I thought it was just the icing on the cake, but now I really think it was the trying to buy a house for so long and not getting it-- it was slowly eating away at me. Now that it's over, nothing seems as bad anymore.

What does this have to do with my work at Pomona Hope? Well, I definitely would not have even considered it if I wasn't working here. When I was in graduate school, one of the articles I read an article called, " A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures" by C. Tiebout (pronounced tee-bow, like a hair bow) in 1956, which laid out what is now known in the Public Policy world as the Tiebout Model. Without getting too into it (I hope) and boring anyone reading this, the model basically says that in a perfect world, people would vote with their feet-- meaning that if they didn't like the way a city, state, country, etc. was run (mostly city level though), they would just move. After I read that, I realized that yeah, we do get to vote, but sometimes the vote doesn't go the way we want it to, and there is the very real possibility that it would go so far against what I wanted it to, that I would not want to live there anymore. And it's way easier to move if you don't actually own anything. (But it also turns out that you're way more likely to want to move if you live in an apartment complex with 100 inconsiderate neighbors vs. the possibility of maybe 5 neighbors who could potentially be inconsiderate.)

Anyway, I'd basically resigned myself to never owning a house (unless I won the lottery or married rich) because it was all too expensive for me anyway. But then I got this job, and I knew what community I wanted to be in. And I knew that things were bad here already, and I still wanted to fight for it to get better (sorry, Tiebout). And whoever heard of a missionary who didn't live where they worked anyway?!

Of course, I didn't actually come to the realization of any of this until my dad said one day, "You should think about buying a house. Tom says that the housing market is really cheap in Pomona right now."

I blew him off for the first couple weeks. But I also thought about it. I finally had to tell him, when he brought it up again, that even if I wanted to buy a house, there was no way I could afford the down payment, the closing costs, whatever it cost to fix the place up to livable, etc. I could maybe afford the monthly payment if I had a roommate, and at that point, the main thing pushing me to even consider it was that the rent was going up again (consistently $100/mo. more every year) and the roommate I had was moving out. So, he generously agreed to help out. So glad he was there for the actual buying process!

So the hunt began in May. I went through 6 real estate agents before finding one that would actually bother with anything in my price range... literally the bottom of what's selling now-- I have so many horror stories. Not just of houses. Of the entire process. I still don't fully understand it, and I think that having been so out of control of the entire process made me desperately want to be in control of everything else, when I really wasn't the take control kind of person. So when everything else wasn't going perfectly, I didn't adapt well.

This is a good thing to remember in times likes these.

I will not bother you with all the stories unless you ask. Partly because I don't really want to think about them anymore, and partly because it would take you at least an hour to read them all, and me even longer to type them. And I have a lot of other stuff to tell you about what's actually happening at the program!

The big news is: I bought a house! I now have literal ownership of my mission, and it's in the same neighborhood as many of my kids. It's walking distance to work, folks.

Math Art Journals
You know those Indiana Jones Math Art-type journals I was talking about teaching to the kids awhile back? Well, I started on January 10th. Every Friday, most of my 4th-6th graders come in the afternoons to do this workshop. It's only been a few weeks, but they really seem to enjoy it. I've found something interesting about my kids too. No matter how much they complain about you giving them an assignment, if they get to do some kind of research and they don't have to come up with the perfect answer, they really get into learning. Last week, they started researching/doing the math to find whether or not all the animals Noah was supposed to pack really could fit on the Ark. The first half is done: they figured out how big the Ark was. Just so you know, I haven't actually done this math either, so I'm not sure what they'll come up with. But the Bible gives specific measurements (although the kids have to convert them to something they understand), and it's possible to figure out (yay Google!) how many animals actually would have needed to ride the Ark. So, they'll come up with something... stay tuned.

House Cleaning
Don't be fooled into believing everything is perfect all the time. There has been a lot of drama, and we had to do some house cleaning, but I don't think it's right to go into any details, to protect kids and families involved. But as a staff, we've learned that we really need a form to record everything. And it's not just to protect us as an organization, but also our kids and our volunteers. It sucks that it's necessary, but I guess that's the world we live in.

Volunteer Coordinators
This will probably be confusing because I am the Volunteer Coordinator for Pomona Hope, but Emily learned when she was doing everything that it was easier for her to have one contact person for the bigger organizations that are supporting us with volunteers (schools and churches mostly). These people are volunteer Volunteer Coordinators. The one with the most difficult job I think is the one for the Claremont Colleges. That's 5 schools of college students to keep track of! And most of these students don't drive, or if they do, don't have cars. So not only does this person have to keep track of our largest volunteer base and report to me on who is coming on which day, but they also have to find rides for the volunteers, make sure everyone coming in the same car can stay for the same amount of time (at a time when we actually need that many people), etc. etc. etc. It's NOT an easy job. And they do it for my eternal gratitude.

I started out the year with one of our former interns being the Coordinator for all of the 5C's, but she had to go and get a really awesome study abroad assignment in Ecuador. So, I was on the hunt for someone else who could do the job (while planning advent stuff, helping with Christmas stuff, still doing my regular job, and buying a house... can you see why I was stressed?). I couldn't find any one person who thought they could do the whole job well. And as big a bummer as that was, I was actually really grateful for the honesty. And LUCKILY, I found two people who thought that they could do a good job with two different parts of the assignment. And so far, they're doing an awesome job! I'm so excited!

Also, through this whole process, I've discovered the wonders of Google Drive, because of a former volunteer coordinator. Did you know that you can create surveys on Google Drive for free? Ask as many questions as you want, have certain answers take you to different questions, and have it all automatically update a spreadsheet for your convenience! WHAT?! That was what a former volunteer coordinator used, and it was genius. I spent an entire evening trying to figure out how to link SurveyMonkey answers to a spreadsheet and trying to figure out how to get all the necessary information out of 10 questions so I wouldn't be charged, and it turns out I had the capability all along! I think I may try to have all my potential volunteers fill out surveys after this year ends. Keep the information centralized.

I'm also gonna start making random surveys in my free time. So, be prepared. (Don't worry too much, I just bought a house.)

Fundraising
I found out last week that Pomona Hope only has enough money to continue paying me at full time for 2 more months. After that, I'm not sure what happens. I may be cut back to half time. I honestly don't know how everything will get done if that happens. So, since I don't really have time to get grants, and most of my salary is fundraised through individual donors anyway, I'm wondering if anyone out there has any new ideas? Because I'm running out.

I've started a crowdfunding site, so please share it with your friends who might be interested in making sure our kids get the best attention we can give them! Thank you!!!

Pomona Hope Kids Coordinator Campaign

K-3rd Art
This is pretty much the only thing I have pictures of, so have some pictures of cute kids decorating cookies for MLK Jr. Day!

"The Christmas Message is that There is Hope for a Ruined Humanity--Hope of Pardon, Hope of Peace with God, Hope of Glory--Because at the Father's Will Jesus Became Poor, and Was Born in a Stable So That Thirty Years Later He Might Hang on a Cross." ~ JI Packer

2013-12-31T18:02:00.000-08:00

The last month was pretty hectic, but fun, and came off surprisingly well!

Update
After the kids came back from Thanksgiving Break, they had 3 more weeks of school and programs before going back on another break for Christmas. This alone would likely normally have the kids bouncing off the walls for the duration, but for the first two weeks of that time, they were getting out of school an hour early because they had parent teacher conferences. And we opened up an hour early during that time to let them in. Instead of coming up with a modified, longer program day schedule, we used that time to have the kids work on Christmas crafts and watch Christmas movies or listen as someone read them Christmas books (i.e. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", etc.). They also went through an Advent Calendar, reading a verse or two a day that, at the end of the three weeks, told them the Christmas Story. They put the verses on a small Rosemary bush, shaped like a tree, as ornaments.

Some of the crafts they did included handprint wreaths, Christmas chains, and letters to Santa which, when turned into the red mailbox at Macy's, would count toward Macy's giving $1 donations for each of them to the Make-A-Wish foundation. Some of our older kids were reluctant to write letters to Santa, but once they heard what it was for, they were all over it. Didn't even have to read the age-old article, "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus" to them! My kids are pretty great!

The Annual Christmas party was a HUGE success! 2 different churches participated in the festivities and there were about a million gifts for our kids to choose from to buy for their families. And pretty much all of them were donated! We almost definitely had more volunteers than students. (I could probably give a more exact number, but I didn't plan that day! Thanks Emily!!!) Everyone was wonderful, and while it probably looked crazy, all the reports I got back were about how organized it was.

Of course, I forgot to take pictures, so have some I found on our server!

Merry Christmas!!!

"When You Say a Situation Or a Person is Hopeless, You're Slamming the Door in the Face of God." ~Charles L. Allen

2013-11-25T12:23:00.001-08:00

Quick update since the last one (I hope):

Fundraiser Dinner
The fundraiser dinner went pretty well, I thought! And it was super nice to see so many people who support me there! The room looked gorgeous, and there was a really cool collaborative piece of art work for everyone attending to participate in creating that will be hung in Pomona Hope somewhere. I hope it goes in my office! But the Volunteer Break Room might be better...

I also want to steal the video we showed to add to our volunteer trainings. It was a pretty good overview of what we do, I thought.

And we got new pens! I love them, despite them having orange accents. It actually works on these. (Let me know if you want a pen, we've got about a million. Okay, really more like 500, but who's counting?)

It was nice, as a member of the Ministry Group at my church, who has helped put this event on several times now, to not have a ton of work to do to set everything up... I did help out, but it seemed far less stressful for me this time, and it seems that the past few years the Board has really made sure that they were the ones doing most of the work. I am so grateful to have such a hands-on Board to work for! There was still stuff to do last minute (which is good... I don't like having nothing to do), but it didn't feel like it was the end of the world if it wasn't perfect. Which is strange, because it seems like that's how it should feel once I actually start working for the organization...

The registration process looked very organized. The food was DELICIOUS (my mom even liked her non-dairy versions of everything!). The tables were named after major streets in Pomona! Very cute! It was all very elegant and well done, and everyone involved deserves chocolate.

And I got to dress like a grown-up! I'm gonna need more reasons to wear that outfit.

Garden Knowledge Board Game
The Garden Knowledge Board game got tested for the first time this week! The kids were at snack and we let the older group try it. They really struggled to answer some of the questions I thought would be easy, but hopefully they will rise to the challenge instead of just giving up. They did say they liked it, but I'm not sure how much of that is that they didn't want to hurt my feelings.

Champions
Our Champions had a rough week. Monday there was an incident where several of our students and one high school volunteer were acting very suspicious when some of our incentives for the 2-minute math tests went missing. That, combined with the fact that almost every single one of our junior high students (even the good ones!) left something out to be picked up by staff, caused me to start the entire group off with one warning as soon as they got there on Tuesday. I had to give the entire group a lecture about respect the place and losing our trust and I had to ask the high school volunteer to leave and not come back until after Thanksgiving, but I let him know we wanted him there, but we also wanted him to take his role as a leader seriously. And by the end of the day, I also had to ask his friend (two peas in a pod) to leave and not return until after Thanksgiving (same general speech). I don't like having to come down so hard on the kids, but some of them have been getting away with stuff for too long already, and they seemingly took advantage of the fact that Jeff was on jury duty all week. I just really hope that the two boys do want to come back and do better when they return. I'd much rather have them here than out on the streets all afternoon. Especially with the rise in violent crime around town lately.

Cancelled Day
As harsh as it sounds, the kids who got kicked out really only missed one day. We cancelled the program on Thursday for because of a whole bunch of reasons, the combination of which meant we would have too few volunteers, too many kids with no homework, nowhere to send the kids during garden workshop, and too few rooms by the end of the day, with just me setting everything up and making sure everything worked out. Instead, I used the time to plan our Advent calendar, starting next week, let volunteers know about the week off (for everyone but staff!), and continue planning the Math Adventure Journal! (I have to make it sound cool!)

We've started figuring out our Christmas party (thankfully, Emily is organizing that!) and we're going to be opening an hour early for the kids who are getting out of school early for the next 2 weeks! We may have been crazy when we decided this. But, on the bright side, it means the kids actually have time for their Advent calendar and associated activities!

Week Off?
It's Thanksgiving week and our kids get the week off of school, which means they also get the week off from us. But that doesn't mean WE get the week off! Nope! This week is fundraising week. Everybody's favorite! But in all seriousness, we do need to do it, and we've been so busy with actually running the program that we haven't had a chance to. I don't know about Jeff, but almost every one of my regularly scheduled weekly fundraising sessions has been postponed due to some kind of emergency that I had to deal with (getting kids picked up, people showing up, etc.). So it's good we have this time. Only to be interrupted by our delivery of Thanksgiving Baskets to our kids tomorrow (anyone want to help?), writing a letter of recommendation for a REALLY AMAZING volunteer who wants to go into teaching, and the random phone calls I've been getting all morning. And maybe cleaning my desk. (It really needs it.)

Thanksgiving
I just want to be sure everyone knows how truly thankful I am to be working in this job. To be supported by wonderful people like you. To be there for our kids (even when they're driving me crazy... because it is so rare). To work with amazing volunteers and colleagues, and to work for such an awesome Board. I have a lot to be thankful for, and I hope you do too!

"Hope is the Physician of Each Misery." ~Irish Proverb

2013-11-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

So, I've clearly done a terrible job of keeping up with this. One might ask how it is that I now am being paid full-time, and yet have no time to actually keep up with the blogging to tell everyone what's going on, when I was doing it just fine at half time. Well, I have no idea what happened, but I can promise it's because they're keeping me very, very busy at Pomona Hope and not because I've forgotten altogether.

I can't even remember most of the things I need to catch you up on anymore, so I'll just do the recent ones:

Art Projects
I am terrible at art. I can't draw a straight line with a ruler. I could probably eventually copy something close to what it is supposed to look like, but that generally is something that takes me so long that my lack of patience wins out.

As the Kids Coordinator, part of my job is coming up with an Art project twice a week for my Kindergarten through 3rd graders and once a week for my 4th-6th graders. This has tended to be one of my more stressful, last minute endeavors all year. And the younger kids usually end up with some kind of coloring project.

Thankfully, one of our lovely volunteers from Lifesong Church (Thanks Susan!) asked if there was anything that she and her Bible Study group of women, most of whom were unable to actually come in during programs hours, could do to help out. And it turns out, they're great at arts and crafts! So they've been planning and creating examples, and providing some of the materials for art projects for our K-3rd graders for the past 2 months, and it has been wonderful! More proof that God answers prayers people (even silly, little ones, like "God, please don't make me come up with art projects... it's hard.").

The 4th-6th graders, I've been a little more devious with. They're not as widespread in abilities as our K-3rd graders, so it's a little easier to find something for them, and since they're at the age where math becomes fairly difficult (suddenly jumping from 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 x 2 = 4 to fractions and solving for variables), and I usually have a math professor (thanks Todd!) in the room with them at the time they start their Art time once a week, I've been giving them math-based art projects.

And starting in January, we're going to be working on Math Adventure Journals that are a mixture of history, bible study, math, and art in their art sessions, as well as on Fridays for workshops. (This idea is very heavily based on the stuff that this teacher at a private, Christian middle school does with his kids: http://www.mathsquad.com/mathjournal.html.) I already asked the kids about it and they seem pretty excited! I've been working on my own example journal to show them, and it is interesting, but the art part REALLY slows me down. Still not my spiritual gift.

Halloween: Haunted Tour
I have been kicking myself for almost 2 weeks for completely forgetting to take pictures on Halloween. But it was a really fun day! Usually on Thursdays, we have our weekly Garden Workshop for the kids, but that day our AMAZING volunteer (Thanks, Barb) who has been running it all year was unable to come. She let us know well in advance, so we were able to plan around it! Another awesome volunteer (Thanks Kevin), who happens to live and work at 1st Pres as the Residential Manager put together a really neat "Haunted Tour" of the 3rd floor of the building.

You see, the kids only go up to the 3rd floor to go to the computer lab once a week. One of the rules in the computer lab is if you get a warning up there, no matter how many you've gotten (or haven't gotten) that day, you come straight back downstairs and hang out with the coordinator until computer lab is over. We don't want the kids messing with (or around) the equipment. The kids REALLY don't want to get a warning up there because for years the rumor has spread among them that the 3rd floor is haunted. I don't know who started it, but it probably hasn't helped that they do pass the rooms where people are living and they have occasionally seen shadows pass windows in rooms they can't enter.

So, we decided to capitalize on that (I did remind the younger students that we do not actually have ghosts before they went up). The rooms chosen for the tour were on the opposite side of the floor from anywhere they'd been allowed to go before. They are also some of the creepier rooms in the building to begin with. One was a giant room being used for storage (in a building that's at least 70-80 years old), one is a kitchen area that has windows leading out to a room that used to be the roof (but at one point it was leaky and they found it was cheaper to build a whole new roof than to fix the already existing leaky one), and one room, at the end of the tour, was nearly empty and had no windows at all (easy to make dark). The plan was to set it up like a maze and have our high school volunteers be "ghosts" with the kids having the chance to pick up 7 or 8 pieces of candy on the way through, and then they would have to defeat the "Boss" ghost at the very end to leave, by playing a ring toss game with glow bracelets. I believe the idea came from Luigi's Haunted Mansion (video game).

We were concerned that our Junior Highers (our oldest group) were scheduled to go through first, since they were supposed to go through before our high schoolers usually got there, and when it was still pretty light outside (all but one room had giant windows... even with light-blocking curtains, it's hard to make it REALLY dark), and plus, they're in Junior High, so nothing is exciting. But they actually enjoyed it so much, that many of them finished their homework early just so that they could go upstairs again to help with the younger groups!

Halloween: Trick-or-Treat
At the end of our Program day, we usually offer an extra optional homework hour for the kids who know coming in for the day that they are not going to finish their homework in the time allotted to them that day. But on Halloween, we cancelled it (no one would have stayed that day anyway, no homework for most of the kids who usually do!) so that we could take our kids Trick-or-Treating in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. I did not know this before, but apparently there are a couple streets in that area that get so into Halloween that the police block off the streets to through traffic just so that people can Trick-or-Treat. 12 kids signed up to go with us, and we all had a blast. We had about 1 hour for the actual Trick-or-Treating part, and it was the perfect amount of time to go through one whole street. Two of the kids who came with us didn't have costumes, so we let them borrow some of the stuff we have for our Summer plays, and they were SO happy! One of them just had a king's crown and a purple robe and people kept telling him that they liked his costume and he ate it up! Very cute.

I'm glad we went to that as early as we did (still mostly daylight/dusk) because it was pretty dark by the time we were leaving, it was getting really crowded and pretty scary for our kids. I want to go back next year.

Veteran's Day
Yesterday was Veteran's Day, and while we didn't do anything the day of (except have no programs), I did have the last minute idea for an art project (what?!) for the kids to make cards to send to deployed service men and women. I found an organization to send it to called "Operation Gratitude" and just had the kids make cards.

But then, I figured I know enough Veterans, it wouldn't be too hard to find someone to come in, right? I had planned to ask Mr. Bob back, but he wasn't at church that Sunday, so instead, I asked Mr. Don, whom I've known almost my whole life, and I didn't know he was a Veteran until I randomly walked up to ask him on that Sunday. Much less did I know that he was roommates with Elvis while he was in the Army. One more reason I love my job: I get to know people better by asking questions I would never have thought to ask in the first place.

He even wore his old uniform! Over 50 years later!!!

Garden Workshop Board Game
Any down time I've had has either gone into the Math Art Journal curriculum or the Garden Knowledge Board Game I've been working on in collusion with Barb for days that she can't come or the weather doesn't lend to a good learning environment outside.

The idea came to me when she got sick at the very last minute and we had our kids play board games instead. As the daughter of a hardcore gamer, I was horrified to learn that even our Junior Highers were not interested in playing any games more difficult than the 3rd grade level (ex: Sorry, UNO, etc.). This made me sad (and we will definitely be having more board game days soon), but in the meantime, I decided it would be best if we could still at least stick to a Garden theme.

With help from Barb, I came up with questions and answers (she mostly did the answers, I can't actually grow anything). With help from Kevin, I came up with rules and board game design, and with help from another volunteer from Lifesong, I learned that I don't have to reinvent the wheel to actually create a game board, the internet has everything! Then she edited the PDF I found in her fancy professional version of Adobe so that I could type in the spaces on the board! (Thanks Christine!)

Now I have the dice, everything is printed up, most of the cards are cut out, and I just have to start pasting everything into the folders. Maybe I'll have my sister do that when she comes to visit tomorrow. :-)

Volunteers
A big part of my stress lately (as the volunteer coordinator) has been finding enough volunteers for some days. We usually have just enough on Mondays, we're pretty short on Tuesdays, we have volunteers coming out our ears two Wednesdays a month, and then struggle a little on the others, and Thursdays are mostly manageable. It has been weighing on me heavily for the past few months that there just were not enough volunteers, especially for our youngest groups of kids (since they demand the most attention and there are SO MANY of them!), but also most days for our Junior High group (they have 3 separate classrooms to divide up into, but we have not had 3 volunteers available to be with them on most days, so they all do their homework in one giant room, which tends to be distracting for several of our Middle Schoolers), and our 4th-6th graders, probably our best-behaved, most low maintenance group, has been slipping by with the bare minimum because they are so well-behaved, but I know on many days they could use more help with homework especially.

I've finally made my peace with the lack of volunteers and started getting creative: when there aren't enough adults helping the K-3rd grades, I ask the Junior Highers who are done with their homework if they're interested in helping out. I've even asked a few of our 6th grade girls if they wanted to help the little kids instead of going to gym games. Our kids are wonderful and definitely rose to the occasion, and I've been so impressed by them. But I also don't want to rely on them regularly. They need to have a chance to be kids too.

I've held several extra volunteer trainings (which are a lot of work to set up for and find the time for), made appearances at several different events asking for more volunteers, posted on websites, etc. Other volunteers have told me of their efforts to reach out as well, and it still seems like not enough people.

I have been blessed with so many wonderful volunteers who come regularly and often and do a wonderful job when they're here, I just didn't understand why it still felt like I was falling short. I finally asked Emily last week what I was doing wrong and she said that it's not that I was doing anything wrong, we probably have the same number, if not more volunteers than we usually do at this time, but that we have so many more students than we've ever had before and that almost half of them are all in one room and need help on a more 1:1 or 2:1 ratio of student to volunteer.

I am so SO thankful for my volunteers. They are amazing. Much of my concern comes out of asking them for extra help, so often, when they are just volunteering, it's not their job. I don't want to overwhelm anyone or burn them out. And so many of them are so wonderful and rise to the occasion every time, I just love them. Even some of our high schoolers go above and beyond and it's overwhelming for me thinking about how awesome they all are. Surely, there must be more out there! :-)

TRAINING: Shameless Plug
That being said, are you bored in the afternoons and looking for something to do? Between jobs or done with jobs or have a job that has flexible hours? Do you like kids or Jesus or both and want to see them succeed? I have one more regularly scheduled volunteer training for this calendar year, TOMORROW, November 13, from 3 to 5:30 pm. If you are interested in become one of the awesome few, please let me know if you can make this (if you can't and you're still interested, contact me anyway, we may be able to work something out). You can RSVP to me at liz@pomonahope.org

Funny Pictures
I shouldn't encourage this, but it's really funny to me: all the students have their own wallets to keep track of the money they get for doing good things like homework. One of our Junior Highers threw his high up in the air in the gym and it got caught on the light above him. What are the odds?!

Seriously, someone do the math, I want to know.

And this one is more cute than funny. During our optional homework hour, sometimes the kids finish early, and sometimes students who have no homework (or have finished) stay so that their siblings with homework can finish theirs and parents only need to make one trip. Had to find some way to entertain them while I helped kids with their homework. Started chess club.

It's like Fight Club without the messiness.

“Yesterday is But a Dream, Tomorrow is Only a Vision. But Today Well Lived Makes Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness, and Every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.” ~ Kālidāsa

2013-10-04T12:17:00.006-07:00

I wrote the following post on August 1st, and I THINK I was waiting to have pictures to post here. It's been a crazy 2 months since then, so I completely forgot about it. Most of this is still accurate. I tried to change the times at the bottom to fit our current needs. I will also try to update more frequently. I'M SORRY!!!

It's over! At least, by the time I actually post this with all of the pictures, it will be. We held our end of the summer Open House event two days ago and yesterday and today were all about the field trips!

Performance at the dA
Our kids actually performed their play at the dA Center for the Arts in Downtown Pomona on Saturday. The dA has been really wonderful and they are excited (as are we!) about partnering with us to teach the kids about art! Which is great because half the time, I'm the one responsible for coming up with an art project, and I can't draw a straight line with a ruler.

Art is not my spiritual gift.

DISCLAIMER: I did NOT take the following pictures (I think some of our LAUP interns did). And the dA is an AWESOME place. You should go check it out! http://www.daartcenter.org/

They also came in last Thursday to talk to the kids about a beautiful mural in Downtown Pomona that depicts much of Pomona's history and a vision of its future. It was really cool to point it out to the kids on our way down there, and I hope they take a closer look at it because it does show several of the things they learned about in the history workshop.

I can't comment on how the performace at the dA went, since I was "backstage" trying to corral and keep kids quiet. But I heard that it went great, and it seemed to be standing room only in the gallery. I also got some cute pictures and a video of the Troopers performing!

Open House
I was in charge of organizing the Open House event, which if you know me at all sounds like a bad idea. But it all seemed to go really well! It actually seemed way too easy, so I'm pretty sure I did something wrong... but the actual event looked great. I'm 100% positive that's because I delegated the things I knew I wouldn't be good at to other people and they probably picked up my slack in other areas too.

Party planning is not my spiritual gift.

I didn't get a chance to take pictures at the event, but I'm hoping I'll get them soon from those who did.

Field Trips
I only get to go on the field trip I organized, and luckily, there wasn't a whole lot of organization on my part, since I asked a friend of Pomona Hope's if she could arrange something for us (she's definitely got connections!). Here is what the kids got to do on all their field trips:

Yesterday:
1st graders got to go to Palomares Park and jump in a bounce house, play in the park, and have a pizza lunch.

4-5th graders got to go bowling!

Today:
Middle School students went to see Despicable Me 2 at the Edwards Theater in La Verne this morning, and they got drinks and popcorn.

Our 2-3rd graders will be taking a historical tour of the Fox Theater and then eating dinner at the Food Trucks at the Fairplex.

After School Program
Don't think that just because the Summer program is over that our staff gets a break. Oh no. We get about a week without kids in which we need to rearrange the rooms and set them up for the school year. That's also the week that we need to train volunteers so that we have someone to hep us when we do open up again in 3 weeks to the students. The week after volunteer training is when we will be testing students to determine in which group to place them.

If you're interested (which you totally are!) in volunteering with us for the After School Program, the upcoming dates and times of trainings are as follows (and you only need to attend one):

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 3-5:30 pm

~~Tuesday, August 6, 3-5pm (returning adult volunteers only)~~
~~Wednesday, August 7, 3-5pm (adults only)~~
~~Thursday, August 8, 3-5pm (adult and HS volunteers)~~

Please contact me at liz@pomonahope.org if you're planning on attending ~~one of these trainings~~ this training.

After this, we will be holding monthly training sessions on the first week of every month.

~~We also will need volunteers to help us test the kids on August 13th and 14th, 3:30-5:30 pm~~. (Too Late!)

Volunteering other people for things... THAT'S my spiritual gift.

"When Hope is Hungry, Everything Feeds It." ~Mignon McLaughlin

2013-07-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

If you are reading this blog because you just got a letter from me, I want you to know that you have been prayed for. (If you didn't get a letter and you want one, let me know. Or if you just want to be prayed for... I'm open.)

Now, updates...

History Workshop
We're halfway through our fourth week of the Summer Enrichment program, and I just finished teaching my last history workshop (at least of the ones I'm teaching). We're having a guest speaker come in from the dA Center for the Arts (in downtown Pomona) to talk to the kids about the goddess, Pomona for the last full history workshop of the summer.

Since the visit from Mr. Bob, I've been telling the kids about Pomona's history specifically.

I've told the kids about the Tongva Indians, who used to live all over Southern California, and had two rancherias in Pomona (which made up a village called Toibi). They learned about their culture, which is different from most of the other American Indians you study in school: men AND women could be chief, they lived relatively peacefully and traded with their neighbors, and they only believed in one God, in a religion that have parts that are very similar to Christianity! In fact, one of the stories I told them about the Tongva had to do with this last fact and the almost attack on Mission San Gabriel. (Ask me if you want to know! It's super cool!) How's that for a plug?

I've told the kids about Ricardo Vejar and Ignacio Palomares. They were the two men who came to Pomona to settle here after the Tongva left to live in the Mission (or died because of the new diseases that they couldn't fight off). Vejar and Palomares got here after Mexico declared independence and were granted the land by the Mexican governor. Back then, it was called Rancho San Jose. I also told them about how Vejar lost his land to pay back his debts and Louis Phillips slowly bought it up while he was the caretaker of it. The kids were excited because many of them recognize those names because streets, schools, and parks are named after them. That same day they also learned about Spadra and the Citrus industry in the valley, and then they made their own crate labels! (I so wish I got pictures of them now!)

On this day, I got a little nervous teaching, because we had volunteers in the room who are teachers by trade. At the end of the workshop one of them was in, though, she paid me the highest compliment and told me that she forgot that she was there to help because she was so interested in what I was saying and the way I was teaching the kids! YAY!

I walked the kids down to the YMCA (literally at the end of the block) and told them about the Palomares Hotel that used to be right where we were sitting and how it was the center of social life in the valley. But that ended when it burned down, and later the town lobbied for a YMCA to be built there (right after WWI). I also told them about a terrible train wreck that happened on Christmas Eve of 1899 that led the town to the collective decision to open a hospital (now Pomona Valley Hospital).

And Jelitza got back from her orientation at UC Berkeley, so I had her lead the discussion of the quotes. She, of course, was awesome!

Last Thursday, I showed the kids a slideshow of pictures of old schools, parks, and churches and we played a little game: I made them guess what each one was before I told them what it was and sometimes told them funny tidbits about it. Like the first Pomona High School, which then became the first Emerson Middle School, which is now Emerson Village, a retirement community. It's just funny for me to think that people who went to middle school there might be living there now.

Yesterday was a very serious discussion for our older kids. I told all the kids about the L.A. County Fair, but the younger two groups, I just focused on how it was started and then showed them pictures of that and the Fox Theater and talked about how those things are still around today even after 80-100 years! (Which was the point of the picture slideshow too.)

The older kids learned about the Japanese Internment Camps and how the government ordered everyone of Japanese descent out of their homes to live in the internment camps, and that the Fairgrounds were an Assembly Center where they lived from April 1942 to August 1942 (during the hot summer months... in Pomona!) before they were moved to Manzanar to live for up to 3 years. I read them interviews I found in articles published last year who were taken, by force, to the camps as children. And I showed the oldest group this picture, taken in Pomona:

Then I asked them to think about how they would feel if all of this was happening to them. I gave them a chance to write their reflections in relation to this quote:

The really cool part was that one of our LAUP interns, Jenn, had a grandmother who went into one of those internment camps, and she was moving with our oldest group of kids for the day. So she shared what she was told about them as well, and how it affected her family. Honestly, if I had known that she was Japanese American, I would have felt a little more nervous about it, going in (but all I knew was that she's pretty and awesome). But at the end of the day, she actually thanked me for teaching about it.

Coordinating

The days that I was not leading a history workshop, I was the Coordinator for the program. My responsibility in that job is to tell everyone when it's time to go to their next workshop, field volunteer and student questions and problems, keep track of discipline, call parents, if needed, and deal with any other problems and emergencies as they come up. Sometimes, I have days where everything is going wrong and I don't get anything done outside of putting out fires. Sometimes, I get time to visit the workshops and take some awesome pics.

Learning silent "E"

Unfortunately, the last two days I've coordinated, there were many fires to put out, so I didn't get AS many pictures. Here's hoping today goes better!

Donations

We've had a lot of in-kind donations lately, and a lot of requests for a wish list of some kind so that people make sure to get us stuff they know we need (hence the last blog post). And it is SUPER awesome guys! Thank you so much!

One of the most touching donations this summer is from the La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church's Vacation Bible School (VBS). They asked us a few months ago what "big ticket" item we might need, and we asked for new soccer nets and soccer balls for the kids to play with. The kids in the VBS program brought in nearly $530 in change over the course of one week! I got to stop by on Wednesday that week to thank them for what they were doing and invite them to come play with us sometime, so who knows? Maybe some day they will!

Bible Study

Usually, my bible study section is reserved for our girls bible study, but we've all been way too busy to have an actual bible study session... a couple of us watched "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding" last week though. We also invited our LAUP interns. Then Some of us spent time contrasting the similarities between the Greek and Mexican cultures. It was fun!

But this time I put Bible Study in because we're working with LifeSong Community Church to implement a new bible study during the school year. Before now, we had a dear friend and volunteer coming in once a week to lead a bible study for the K-3rd graders, and this year another volunteer stepped in to lead one for the junior highers, but there was a void in the bible study programming for our 4th and 5th graders. Our volunteers from LifeSong noticed this gap and have offered to step in and fix it with a new curriculum that they have access to. We all went to a training a couple weekends ago for the adult portion of their curriculum, and I think that, with a little tweaking, it will work! LifeSong is taking point on this project too. They're really doing great and I'm so glad they're on our team!

Wish List for 2013-2014

2013-07-11T10:37:00.001-07:00

The level of generosity of the people around Pomona Hope is constantly astonishing me. Even in these difficult times, people seem to be more willing to give of their time and their resources. I see God in every single one of you.

We've had several requests for our wish list lately (I guess the sales are on now), so we've revisited and revised it. It is on our website, but at the moment, difficult to stumble across. Here's the most updated version:

Office Supplies

• Ink: Canon Cartridge 128 (for Canon ImageCLASS D550)

• Ink: Canon 221 (for black, magenta, yellow and cyan); Cannon PG220 (for Canon MX870 3-In-1 Color)

• Ink: HP colored #22 Black #21 (for HP Deskjet D1560)

• White and Colored Copy Paper

• Cardstock (all colors)

• Transparent contact paper

• Avery Label Paper (all sizes)

• Hanging File Folders

• Sharpie Markers (Fine Point and Ultra Find Point)

• Packaging Tape

• Scotch Tape Dispensers

• Swingline Brand Staplers

• Index Cards (lined and blank cards of all sizes)

Student Supplies

• 2 pocket, three fastener folders (red, orange, yellow and green)

• Wide-ruled and college-ruled notebooks (spiral bound and periferated)

• Small, manual pencil sharpeners

• Pencil top erasers

• Rubber Erasers (white)

• Pencil Cases (any/ all colors welcome! Ideal dimensions: 1.1"H x 2.7"W x 7.9"L)

• Pencil Boxes (any/ all colors welcome! Ideal dimensions: 2 1/4"H x 5 5/8"W x 8 1/4)

• Crayons (boxes of 24)

• Coloring pencils (boxes of 12)

• Rulers

• Child's scissors

Materials to Aid Instruction

• White board markers

• White board erasers

• White board cleaning spray

• Stickers

Incentives

• Incentive prizes for girls (ages 5 -14) e.g. iPod, backpacks, clothes, fun toys, cool school supplies

• Incentive prizes for boys (ages 5-14) e.g. iPod, backpacks, soccer and basketballs, fun toys, cool school supplies

• Incentive Prizes: $5 gift cards to any of the following locations: Target, Walgreens, Rite Aid, McDonalds, Jack in the Box, the 99 Cent Store

Electronics

• Four laser jet printers

• Triple A Batteries

• DVD player

Misc:

• Ceiling Fans (4)

• Megaphone

• Tall Oscelating fans

“Remember, Hope is a Good Thing, Maybe the Best of Things, and No Good Thing Ever Dies.” ~Stephen King

2013-07-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

The first week of Summer Enrichment with Pomona Hope went swimmingly! We had plenty of volunteers, about a bajillion (not really) students, and for the most part, everyone was pretty well behaved. The only talking out of turn that I noticed in my workshops were because the students were so engaged, so I find it hard to punish at that time.

Emily said that the first day was the smoothest first day she'd ever seen... which concerns me a little since it was so crazy (at least the prep part and the very beginning), but as the coordinator for the day, I have to admit that it did go really well while I was coordinating.

It was a short week due to the Independence Day holiday (which I hope went well for you all). We only had one history workshop this week, but it was awesome! Mr. Bob (Bob Beck, from La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church) came in as a guest speaker and showed the kids a bunch of artifacts from the area, some going all the way back to 1820! As a cultural historian, he is interested in how people lived before today, so he has all kinds of interesting things that even *I* had never seen before and wouldn't have known what to do with it if it fell in my lap.

History Workshop


Junior really wanted a picture with Mr. Bob!

What's a record?

I know! I know!

Can't decide which camera to look at.

That moment when you realize you're holding $100,000 dollars...

Receipt for a slave, dated 1820

Gas mask for what?!

We all know that one!

A couple of stragglers. Can't be upset with their interest!

Even the middle school kids are interested!

Drama Workshop : Learning Lines

Science Workshop: Electromagnets

Garden Workshop: Personal Herb Gardens (It's HOT!)

Computer Workshop: Time to Type!

Learning what to do before distracted.

Pictures? Really?

Very concentrated

"The Natural Flights of the Human Mind are Not From Pleasure to Pleasure But From Hope to Hope." ~ Samuel Johnson

2013-07-05T15:40:00.000-07:00

It has been SOOOO long since I updated! I apologize! But Emily has assured me that everything starts over with the Summer Program. So I will just try to catch you up on all the best stories.

Funny Stories
One day, as I was sitting in the sign-in room waiting to check people in, one of our 6th graders, who struggles with his sight and has learning disabilities on top of that, came in incredibly proud of himself. The following conversation ensued...

Him: Liz, guess what?! My teacher said in front of the entire class how much my handwriting had improved!
Me: Good job! I'm proud of you!
Him: Yeah, it's because I started putting spaces in between my words like you told me to!
Me: Awwww, maybe next time you'll listen to me in less than 6th months.

Fun Stories
I actually started typing this blog entry on the last day of the After School Program, while I was sitting drenched in my office chair, after having been one of the main targets in the end of the year water fight for all the kids in the program! That was a fun day, filled with snacks, games, and prizes.
********************************************************************************

Batgirl came to visit! Seriously! She came as a reward for all our students turning in their reports cards, back in March. It was a surprise for the kids, and it took some of the older students to warm up to her, but once they saw how excited some of our youngest kids were to see her, they all got on board. One of our 6th graders was a little upset with me for not telling him ahead of time that she was coming so that he could wear his hat with the Batman symbol on it. That symbol popped up around our program randomly for a week or so after her visit. She told me later that she really loved coming out here and had a lot of fun.

I also had an argument with a 1st grader a few weeks later as to whether she was "Batgirl" or "Batwoman," so I had to text Batgirl just to prove it. Props to the 1st grader, she was a woman... that just wasn't her title.
********************************************************************************

I went to my first Quinceanera! I ate cactus and learned how to say "horchata" and "jamaica." It was a lot of fun! (I also learned that horchata and jamaica are called "agua fresca", so when Jelitza asked me, in English, if I wanted water, she didn't mean actual water.)

Patience-Testing Stories
I don't know if you know this, but there seems to be some kind of trend in bullying going around in our schools (our meaning "American" and maybe even "global") today, and Pomona Hope, it seems, is not immune. We've had to step into situations between some of our kids in the past few months, before they really got to that level (after it became no longer just "all in good fun", but turned to flat out mean, before it got really bad).

Along the same lines, I had the distinguished honor of being the Coordinator the day that we had our first physical altercation ever. Yay for me. -_- Everyone was okay, only one student actually did anything. He felt provoked, but his reaction was over the top and made other students feel unsafe, so he was sent home immediately. No other warnings necessary. I had a long talk with him telling him that we still loved him, but that he was being punished for what HE had done, not for what they had done or said to him (which he was still trying to use as an excuse to justify his actions). All the kids involved spoke to Emily the next day.

Sad Stories
Our student whom we've been concerned about because he was getting himself to and from our program moved a few months ago. He is still in the Pomona Unified School District, and even going to the same school, but it is now too far for him to walk to us, and it is too far out of the way for the other family who was graciously bringing him along to the program with them. We miss him and continue to pray for him.

One of our long-time families has moved away. They told it us it was happening, so it wasn't a huge shock, but it is still sad to see them go. Their four kids were all an integral part of the program and we will definitely miss them.

Exciting Stories

Jelitza graduated from high school! Thank goodness she was wearing her Miss Pomona sash, or we would never have found her in the sea of red. She also got a personal shout out from her Principal at the very beginning of the ceremony. She was the last one off the field.

What are her future plans, you ask? She starts at UC Berkeley in the Fall.

********************************************************************************
What are they doing?! Well, if you're a muggle, you won't understand, but they're looking for a geocache (still to be found). One of our students earned a day of geocaching as a reward for improving his behavior and having more respect for us as well as for himself. He chose one friend to go with him. It was a hot day, but we all had a blast. At the end of it, he asked when we were doing it again. I told him he'd have to talk to Jeff, so he answered, "Ok, so after the Summer Program, then."

Summer Program
We've spent the last month or so preparing for a summer program filled with activities geared toward kids 1st-8th grades. We have workshops for Reading, Science, Math, History, Gym games, Gardening, Computers, and Drama. Our biggest concern was that we would not have enough volunteers, but we've had more people than ever sign up to help us this summer, and most of them have never volunteered with us before! They are all such a blessing!

We were also concerned that we would not have many junior high school students, since we usually have 3, maybe 4, on a daily basis during the school year. But at least count, we had 21 signed up.

We were going to cap the program at 40 students, but we had 50 or so sign up and take the entrance tests. And we're suckers, so we just let them all in.

We currently have two full-time interns, two interns who are here to teach just one workshop (math and garden), two apprentices who have been part of our program for years and have earned a chance at a scholarship from us, and five interns from LAUP (I believe it's the Los Angeles Urban Project), and they're all a HUGE help to us this summer! Most of our other volunteers are coming from LifeSong Community Church, who I just found out a week or so ago has a whole group of people dedicated to praying for us! How exciting! We always need all the prayer we can get! :-)

Actual events in the summer program warrant their own blog entries. Just wanted to catch you up on what you missed with this one.