Volunteering

Ok, so here's my first post about volunteering for Horizons for Homeless Children. I have to be careful about what I put out into the ether because I volunteer at a shelter for survivors of domestic violence, so a couple ground rules. First, I will not be using anyone's actual name or deSo, as a Playspace Activity Leader, I basically get to play with kids for about two hours a week. See, HHC sets up playspaces in shelters, so that kids have a place to do the work of kids, play. Think about it, you developed enormous problem-solving, social, creative, and physical skills just by playing as a child. Well, HHC, and myself by proxy, foster that in homeless shelters so that these kids don't carry the present disadvantage into the future(as I see it anyway). We primarily work with kids from infant to primary school age, about 0-8(sometimes older, we don't turn anyone away). HHC also has childcare centers that take care of kids 0-6 so that parents can work, look for work, deal with housing/legal/health advocates and stuff like that during the day, but that's not me, so onward!

Anyway, I play with the kids(for the sake of redundancy). This can include anything from dancing in circles, making up silly songs, to playing school, to tea parties, to making rudolph the red-nosed-reindeer hats(I've got a killer design), to reading(yes reading, remember that thing we did before 300 tv channels, the inter-ma-net, and playstation). The PALs function is to make sure that this play is constructive and productive(but not in a corporate way, no metrics here) instead of devolving into chaos, and if you've ever seen 5 yr olds with about 10 free seconds, you know what I mean by chaos.

Now, when it's put like that, it may sound extremely easy, and I wish it were. But you have to remember that we're dealing with kids that have lost their homes for one reason or another. That is a traumatic event in their lives, as well as is living in a shelter. So, they are trauma victims to an extent. And in my specific case, I'm dealing with children who have actually been directly affected by or witnessed violent trauma. Playing with and helping these kids requires great patience. I can only marvel at the people who work in these shelters full time, I mean I'm only there 2 hours a week. Needless to say, a lot of traumatic stress symptomizes as anti-social behavior, and whether that's intoverted or extroverted, it requires patience by those who are with the child.

One of the important things to have is a plan and structure, and to tell the kids the plan. They crave stability like Donald Trump craves publicity(I don't know where that came from either, go with it). So, we try to make sure we have a plan and rules that are communicated to the kids each time we're there. That gives them something to count on through the night, just like they can count on us being there on that night every week(HHC requires a 6 month commitment for this very reason). This also helps with me being patient, because I don't get nervous about the next activity thus getting stressed and...losing my patience. So, in summation, plan-good, freaking out-bad. HHC helps out with this by training us, 6 hours intitial plus ongoing seminars, as well as providing materials on age appropriate, skill development activities. They also check in with us a lot to make sure we're comfortable at our assigned shelter, and that we're dealing well with the stress that comes with this work.

I love the shelter I'm at and the kids I'm with. The kids differ from night to night, some have parents who work late so they aren't always there, or they may be away, or they may move out(which is sad, but it's also really good because it means they found transitional housing or permanent housing).

One of our kids, we'll call him Bob, really likes to sing, dance, and play role related games. Now, some of you may know me well, so you know that is right up the alley for my wife and I(PS-we volunteer together, forgot to mention that, hence all the "we" stuff). It's hilarious, he still wants to sing X-mas carols, even though it's mid-January, and he's sometimes happiest just having everyone do-si-do around the room or doing the hokey-pokey. He's a special kid. And there's another kid, Dave, who loves, I mean loves to play chess! And man, can this kid talk some serious smack. I have not heard a kid try to get in your head the way this one does, but I still beat him...most of the time. And there are more, and I could go on, but I just noticed that this post is ridiculously long.

To sum up, sometimes it's a challenge, but mostly volunteering as a PAL is an extremely rewarding experience, more for me than the kids I think. And to bring it back to this site, supporting Horizons for Homeless Children with monetary gifts allows them to build more playspaces and train and place more PALs so that ultimately more homeless kids get an oppurtunity to develop into the amazing people they can be.

More on my physical trials tomorrow. Can you believe in Boston it's 18 F outside(5 F windchill) and will drop 2 degrees by the time I run tonight :-( I look forward to describing frostbite and hypothermia to you in intimate detail for tomorrow's post. Until then, have a great one!