Week 7

monday, october 27

we continued our monday routine this week. after a few weeks of trying out different combinations, the life skills/dance lesson/cooking for young life seems to be the best for us. for life skills we continued our laundry series (last week we worked on folding t-shirts) and learned how to fold blankets, sheets, and towels. we practiced folding towels by ourselves and also how to fold big blankets with a partner when they are too hard to fold by ourselves. we then had our weekly dance lesson with trish!

tuesday, october 28

on tuesday we carved the pumpkins that we picked up at a pumpkin patch last week (and which have been rolling around my trunk ever since). we split up into pairs and went through a lesson on how to cut the top open, scoop out the seeds, make a pattern, and cut the face into a jack-o-lantern! (click on the slideshow to the right to see all our pictures) they turned out so great and everyone was so creative with their faces. while scooping out seeds, we made everyone at least try to use their hands at first and it was great to see natalie even use her hands, after much deliberation!

i'm not entirely sure how it happened, something about challenging ryan to a sit-up contest, but after pumpkin carving we had a bit of an impromptu exercise session. we learned the correct way to do sit-ups and push-ups, did jumping jacks, and stretched. our friends gave the staff quite a work out!

wednesday, october 29

at feed the children this week, we got to do our favorite job for the whole time- packing boxes! we packed about 120 hygiene boxes that will be given out to families in need. everyone has their own specific place in the assembly line and everyone is getting extremely good at their jobs! i count the boxes and put them on the assembly line roller, stephanie is in charge of shampoo, s'latina does cleaning products, tricia is tissue boxes, katie is hairspray, kristy puts in paper towels, michael does toilet paper, natalie puts in make-up kits, and finally jon puts in feed the children brochures and mark and steph tape up the boxes. we have all learned a lot about working together to accomplish tasks and love to see the amount of boxes we can finish in our time there skyrocket!

thursday, october 30

yesterday we made our way outside the city to finally visit the rippavilla corn maze before it closed. (our first visit was canceled due to unforeseen circumstances) the theme of the corn maze this year is space, so the pattern of the corn maze is a giant solar system! at different places around the maze were educational boards about each of the planets, meteors, and other space trivia. we stopped at each one we came to and had mini-lessons about the solar system.

friday, october 31

happy halloween! today we had a halloween party and everyone came in costume to celebrate the occasion. we made some halloween masks, bobbed for apples, watched a bit of a scary movie, and, of course, took lots of pictures! bobbing for apples was by far the favorite activity. s'latina was able to grab all 8 apples in 4 minutes while getting soaking wet. what i was most proud of though, was that everyone took a turn and got their face wet, regardless of how much they hate to get messy!

Week 6

sorry for the late update, everyone! last week proved to be a tough one with many people getting sick (including myself) and other crazy situations.

monday, october 20

on monday we did a review of our previous laundry lesson and spent some time practicing folding shirts. it took a while but everyone eventually got the hang of it. kristy folded so well we all decided she should get a job working retail!

we had our 3rd dance lesson with trish and these just continue to get better. we continued with the ballet and switched it up with a little country line dancing!

tuesday, october 21

tuesday we took a trip in the what we have now christened the "party van" out into the country to go pumpkin picking. we learned the attributes of a good carving pumpkin, had everyone pick some out, and voted on our favorite four to carve next week. on a whim we stopped at a small apple orchard on the way home and took a stroll through the apple trees. we also got to check out their store and found some great peach cider!

wednesday, october 22

at feed the children we spent lots of time taping and stacking boxes- something we are getting very good at! this wednesday was an extremely productive one in the warehouse. people were focused and getting the job done. jon and our new volunteer ryan were in charge of stacking boxes and i've never seen him (jon) work so hard since we started the afternoon program! at the end we did 80 boxes (2 whole pallets) instead of our typical 40. yeah!

thursday, october 23

today was our first day volunteering with blood:water mission. we spent time putting thank you cards and receipts into envelopes to mail out to donors. it was great to get to know the blood:water staff and we look forward to working with them even more in the future!

friday, october 24

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3! On Friday we had a release party for HSM 3 in preparation for going to see the movie Sunday with Young Life Capernaum (which was rockin'). we played some high school musical games, hsm trivia bingo, and hsm name that tune! then we got ready by watching some of the best dance scenes and singing along at the top of our lungs. it was a great time!

see you next week!

meaghan

Week 5

monday, october 13 - election talk and ballet

on monday metro had off of school for fall break so we missed a few that were out of town and doing other things. somehow, though, i was able to get everyone excited about playing a presidential/election trivia game i made up. i was thoroughly impressed by how many of the questions our friends could answer about the election coming up and presidents in the past (who was the tallest president ever? the shortest?). michael just might be the most well-informed 20 year old i've met in a long time!

the answers are lincoln at 6'4" and madison at 5'4", by the way.

our second dance lesson with trish was an amazing improvement over the first. as everyone gets to know her and lets their inhibitions about dance go, we are all dancing up a storm! natalie was more joyful than i have ever seen her, laughing this huge belly-laugh and breaking out some moves i've never seen. i believe she even showed us the "swimmer" move from the 60's :)

we spent the last part of the afternoon program, like every monday, cooking for young life capernaum. every week i feel more confident that people know their jobs, what to do, and just let them go for it, although they might be getting sick of cooking mac n cheese every week! we'll see.

tuesday, october 14 - blood:water mission

today was our orientation to blood:water mission, where we will be helping out every other week. for those of you who aren't familiar with b:w m, they are an organization which helps to build freshwater wells for villages in africa. they are very community oriented and work directly with the african villages and different african organizations, allowing each village to take ownership of the new well. they have kindly agreed to let us help them with their receipts each month and different projects such as mass mailings. this week we went and met the staff and went through an orientation about who they are and what they do and they let us see some great pictures of the people they are helping out. each time a picture of someone came up, inevitably one of our friends asked for their name, most of the time stumping the b:w m staff. it was so sweet to see their gift of counting each person as a unique individual with a story. now the staff will make sure to know names before they show us pictures!
(picture above is friends life afternoon program with the b:w m staff)

after we left blood:water, we were able to spend some great time celebrating jon and his full 20 years of life with some delicious cupcakes!

wednesday, october 15 - feed the children

one of our weekly jobs at feed the children is to construct boxes for packing using tape guns, which can be extremely tricky as evidenced by the many cuts on my left index finger. the highlight of this particular trip was that after weeks of trying and trying, stephanie was able to tape a box together completely by herself! s'latina was helpful as always and got to help mark move some pallets around. all in all, it was a great day and jon found his calling as a professional sweeper!

thursday, october 16 - life skills day: teeth!

for our weekly life skills lesson, steph (staff) gave a great talk about dental hygiene. we first went over teeth, why we have them, how many we have, why its important to take care of them. we then made our own little sets of chompers using marshmallows and toothpicks and learned the correct way to brush in order to remove plaque but save our enamel! we also practiced flossing, which was pretty funny to watch- i got some great pictures. everyone now has calenders to put in the bathroom and whenever they remember to brush their teeth twice a day, a smiley face goes in the calender. if they do this for an entire week, a prize might just be forthcoming!

friday, october 17 - edwin warner cart tour

we spent some time at the edwin warner nature center a couple weeks ago, which everyone really enjoyed. we did a scavenger hunt and were able to hike the trails a little bit. while we were there, one of the staff people offered to take us on a tour by cart (for those of our friends who might not be the quickest walkers) of the entire park. it should be beautiful with all the leaves changing, and the weather looks like it might hold up!

see you next week,

meaghan

welcome!

welcome to the blog of the friends life afternoon program! we are a newly formed organization which provides opportunities for community service, learning, and, of course, fun for young adults with developmental and physical disabilities.

our first step was to create an afternoon program which meets monday through friday where we spend time out in the community as well as in the classroom. this is what we've been up to!

Week 4

unfortunately, we are coming into week one of the blog during week four of the afternoon program and time is short, so you will just have to take my word for it that we have had a fantastic time.

i feared that a routine would never come, that each day would continue to be crazier than the last until it spun way beyond my ability to control it, but as we near the one month anniversary of the afternoon program i can feel us creating a rhythm as we get to know one another. the participants are a little calmer, the staff is a little saner, and we are still having as much fun as we did on day one.

monday, october 6- an experimentation with dance

first of all, we celebrated a 20th birthday with our very own Katie, the third birthday we've had since the afternoon program began. happy birthday, katie bell!

i have heard nothing but wonderful things from parents about a woman named trish, an ex-special education teacher who now teaches dance and music to people with disabilities. we have been in contact for the past two weeks and on monday we were finally able to have our first lesson with her. i was unsure of how everyone would like it after many claims of "i don't like to dance," even though i swear i've seen each of our friends dance like a crazy person at young life capernaum. it was a hit! jon galloped around the room and i believe i even saw s'latina, who swears to hate dancing, lift her arms during the ballet lesson. trish bravely agreed to come back next week so we'll see where that takes us!

tuesday, october 7- a change of plans and dealing with the weather

on the schedule for tuesday was a gardening project i was planning while we still had nice weather, even if it is a little late in the season to plant. two things changed this: one, we all woke up tuesday morning to torrential downpours and two, i got a call from alecia in the young life office saying that the recycling center we installed there was full and ready to be picked up! instead of gardening we had a lesson in recycling- how do we do it, why do we do it, and what actually happens when something gets recycled? we then went to the young life office donned with non-latex gloves and trash bags and proceeded to sort through the cardboard, paper, plastic, and aluminum. natalie broke down boxes while s'latina and michael learned the difference between corrugated cardboard and paper board. as a recycling nut, i've never been so proud!
the weather cooperated for a while and we took our newly sorted recycling over to the hillsboro recycling center to complete the process and took a great photo (shown above)!

wednesday, october 8- feed the children

we went back for our weekly visit to feed the children this wednesday, after a week off while they did inventory. as usual, everyone's focus waxed and waned, but we were able to tape and stack a few hundred boxes in the first hour and a half or so. after our break/snacktime, we went back and were able to pack hygiene products in the boxes we had just constructed. everyone is always excited about packing boxes because it gives us all a concrete picture of what we are actually doing for people. each box goes to a different family in need and we focus our attention on keeping track of how many boxes we've filled. this day we packed about 40 in 30 minutes- we were able to help 40 families! hardworking awards definitely went to stephanie and kristy.

thursday, october 9- life skills lesson: laundry

thursdays so far have been reserved for in the classroom instruction on different life skills areas. a few weeks ago we had a lesson on how to set the table and talked about good table manners, this week we learned how to sort, wash, dry and fold laundry! we started with an activity about sorting colors, using starbursts and m & m's which we ate afterwards (and during). we then moved on to actual clothes, sorted them, washed, dried, and folded them, and voila! my roommate claire has a full basket of newly cleaned clothes. as we practice these skills more and more we hope to translate them into community service, such as doing laundry for the homeless or for room at the inn which is hosted by hillsboro pres!

thanks everyone for a great week,

meaghan