Reflections

I was in ninth grade when I first heard of the Make A Difference project. To be honest, I thought it was pointless… and I was wrong. The Make A Difference project is more than just a “project,” it is a learning experience and an opportunity to improve the world in any little way that we can. Through our acts of kindness, we were able to help our community and gain different perspectives. Since completing Make A Difference, I’ve had time to reflect on all the work that was put into this project and its outcome.

The first task we were assigned was to locate places where we could volunteer. To find places where we would enjoy working, we also had to know our interests. I had to ask myself, “What do I enjoy? What would I be happy doing? What could I do to help people?” These questions narrowed the list of choices so I was left with places where I could tutor or work with children who needed help. The one place that stood out was Quest Therapeutic Services. Quest is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization and is dedicated to helping children with special needs to grow and develop to their fullest potential by providing hippotherapy, which is treatment with the help of a horse. I have always been interested in horses but have never had an opportunity to work with them, so when Ally, Dahlia, Jen, and I formed a group (along with the guys, Mahjub, Mike, and Dan), I was pleased that we would be working at Quest.

While at Quest, we helped with the hippotherapy sessions and the Special Olympics program. After being taught about the care of horses and how to sidewalk with a patient, we were assigned to a horse and rider or given chores to do around the facility. I also had the opportunity to lead a horse, not an easy task when the horse is irritated and tired. Even though the horses nipped and the patients were not always cooperative, working at Quest has opened me up the interactions between people and the many different needs of the children. I think working Quest was a positive experience; it so positive that most of the time, I did not even feel like I was working. There was nothing that I would describe as “labor” because it was a joy to work with everyone.

Finally, the actual project part of Make A Difference was surprisingly fun. Our group worked together on everything except for the overheads, which the guys put together, and the blog, which I created. Our group met after school and either stayed in the library or went to someone’s house to work on the various aspects of our project that needed to be done. Aside from writing our journal entries, we worked together on almost everything. While we created the presentation, we went to see Mrs. Treadway who was a huge help in the technology component. When the day came, the presentation ran very smoothly and now, our scrapbook looks wonderful.

From beginning to end, the Make A Difference project has been marvelous. Our act of kindness was not only beneficial to Quest, but also a learning experience for us. We were able to help our community, gain different perspectives, and put together a terrific presentation. I have come a long way from thinking the Make A Difference project was just that, a “project.” I intend continue volunteering at Quest and I can truly say, this experience has made a difference in both our community and my life.

~Stephanie

Philosophy

Everything we do in life has a purpose, a raison d’être. There is always a philosophy behind the action. Our sophomore Make A Difference projects concentrated on helping our communities with acts of kindness in the form of service. Audrey Hepburn once said, “You will discover that you have two hands. One is for helping yourself and the other is for helping others.” This quote was the basis of my group’s philosophy while working at Quest Therapeutic Services. Quest is a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping children with special needs to grow and develop through hippotherapy, treatment with the help of a horse.

While at Quest, our group of seven worked with the children and helped take care of the horses. We did anything that was asked of us and provided much-needed help to the understaffed facility. However, helping at Quest was not the only benefit of this project. We also benefited from the experience of Quest; we met new people and learned how to deal with horses and children with special needs. The positive environment of Quest contributed to our learning experience and our ability to help the patients who go there for treatment.

With our two hands and our philosophy, we were able to help others by working to make their lives easier and ourselves by opening up to new experiences and perspectives. Overall, the Make A Difference project changed our lives and possibly the lives of others by showing us that one small act of kindness goes a long way.

~Stephanie

Final Thoughts

It has been a week since I last wrote and much has happened. After testing our presentation and running through it, last Thursday, we finally presented our project to the class. Even though it went a little overtime, the presentation was still very nice. We ended up being the largest group to present because we were a “joint” group and we were the only ones who volunteered at Quest.

Thursday night, I left home to attend the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Seminar at Temple University and did not return until about 6 PM on Sunday night. Over the weekend, my group had gotten together to work on the scrapbook for our project and I must say, it looks very nice! On Monday and Tuesday, we finalized everything that still needed to be done. Today is the day the scrapbook was due in class but we will still be able to add items, such as our reflection and philosophy. I don’t know about anyone else, but I enjoyed my work at Quest. For me, this project has truly made a difference.

~Stephanie

Scrapbooking

Because we were in needed of creative materials to begin our scrapbook,  yesterday I volunteered to go out to Micheal’s craft store and buy what we needed to make our scrapbook excellent.  Today, I met Dahlia and Mahjub and Dahlia’s house and we planned out the entire scrapbook and what would be included in it.  I also volunteered to finish the scrapbook at my house over the next few days, and make it look wonderful.  I also need to begin my philosopher essay as well as my reflection to the Make A Difference project.  Although this is my last entry in my journal, the project overall created a long lasting effect on me.  At the beginning of the project my journal entries seem to show a hesitant quality about what I would be doing.  In the end, work at QUEST has made me recognize how such a beneficant act can impact day to day life.

-Ally

Presentation Day

After all of our hard work, today was finally the day where we would be able to share with other peers what our Make A Difference project truely was about.  Although it was a long and drawn out day in the LGI, I was amazed at all of the different volunteer works groups had decided on.  Our presentation seemed to go smoothly to me, although we were about five minutes over our time limit.  Reguardless of what Mahjub says, being a few minutes over does NOT determine your entire grade.  Mrs. Kapp also said she would take into account that we did have a larger group than others, therefore we had more technological components.  Overall, our presentation seemed well organized and stimulating.

-Ally

Last Minute

Well, tomorrow is the presentation day. Today, we stayed after school to test our presentation and went to Ally’s house to finalize everything. Even thought the presentation is tomorrow, we sill still have to turn in a “scrapbook page” along with our critique sheets and an essay after the presentation. Unfortunately, I will be away all weekend so I will not have much time to complete the work. Hopefully things will still run smoothly.

~Stephanie

Verifying and Finalizing

Mrs. Kapp was back today, and went over all the little aspects of our presentation that we had questions on.  She also allowed our group to meet and go down to Mrs. Tredway’s room once again to test our presenation.  When we got there, for some odd reason our slideshow was not working in the way that it had been yesterday.  The quality was terrible, and the slideshow itself seemed to be stalling.  Lucky for us, Mrs. Tredway decided to switch our presentation to a different laptop with different programs on it and this seemed to solve the problem.  After our encounter with Mrs. Treadway, we all met at my house and discussed who was saying what for presentation today.  I was assisgned to speak about our indtroduction slide in addition to our scrapbook page slide.  After meeting at my house I was reassured that our presentation would run smoothly.

-Ally

~”And on the 7th day he rested”~

It’s the day before the presentation and we spent all afternoon at Ally’s. We made some final touches on the power point and played the slide show just to make sure it ran correctly. We reviewed each part of the presentation and rehearsed what we are going to say tomorrow.  After a few tries we finally felt it was coming out smoothly. We gave it one more rehearsal just to make sure we had it down.  We also decided on our quote.  It ended up being:

“You will discover that you have two hands.
One is for helping yourself and the other is for helping others.
Audrey Hepburn

This although not one that made my favorites list was in my top 5 and that was good enough for me. With the project finally finished we all went home exhausted. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who took a nap when they arrived home.

~Jen

Classwork

Like yesterday, Mrs. Kapp was absent from class again, but we were allowed more time to work on our project.  Once again we tested our powerpoint and slideshow on Mrs. Kapp’s computer and they seemed to be working just fine.  Our group also discussed getting together to finalize our project tomorrow since our presentation is on Thursday.  We also inquired about the scrapbook, and determined we would need to get together this weekend at Dahlia’s house to work on it. 

-Ally

Quality Class Time

We decided to use this quote:

“You will discover that you have two hands. One is for helping yourself and the other is for helping others.”

~ Audrey Hepburn

Mrs. Kapp was not in class again today. Ally and Dahlia had managed to work on the philosophical aspects of our project yesterday, so today our group met to hammer out the details of the presentation. We viewed the PowerPoint and slideshow on the computer and finally have a good song for the slideshow. The presentation is on Thursday!

~Stephanie