Birthdays and Basketball: The Main

A guest blog entry from Abby! :)

Joanna didn't work with the young kids today so I am going to write about what we did. Every month, The Main has a birthday party for the kids who have their birthdays that month. We spent a lot of this week planning it and making decorations. The theme for this month's party was "Enchanted Garden." We cut out and painted around 200 paper flowers and hung them on the walls of the main activity room along with a dragon, a unicorn, and a painted carousel. It looked really cute! We also had a big birthday cake with a picture from a fairy tale printed on it.

As usual, we played in the gym as the kids were arriving for the first hour and then went over to The Main. The kids didn't know until today that we were having the birthday party so it was exciting to surprise them. At the same time, we had more kids there today than I think we've had since we've been here so it was super hectic. As soon as we came in many of them started making crowns, one of the activities we had set up for the birthday party. Some of the kids sat at the table quietly making crowns while others were chasing each other around the room screaming. It was impossible to get them to listen to us most of the time because they were so wound up. Another activity we had to go along with the theme was a fort that Tara and Lauren had constructed out of cardboard boxes. It was really cool - it had tunnels, windows, and doors that opened and closed. We were afraid it would fall apart so we let three kids in at a time, and I supervised. The kids loved it, but they were pretty hard on it; by the end of the night, it was completely flattened. Chase pretended he was a lion and chased kids through the tunnels and around the doors while I helped hold up one of the tunnels from falling. At least three or four kids were crying at different points because they hurt themselves running around, but we couldn't really get them to stand still long enough to listen to us.

Finally it was time to clean up and eat dinner, but that took a while because everyone was bouncing off the walls. Finally we got everyone to sit down and eat for a few minutes, and then it was time for the birthday kids to open presents. Something really awkward that happened was that one of the girls was crying because she didn't like her present. A couple of the volunteers had picked it out and thought she would like it, and were frustrated that she was so ungrateful. I think that something that is a constant struggle at The Main is that kids constantly misbehave and disrespect the space and the volunteers, yet they are still allowed to come back every day. We talked about whether it is really the volunteers' place to suspend the kids just for goofing off. I think it would be hard to know what to do in that situation, especially because the kids are only there for a few hours every day and it's supposed to be a place for them to have fun. Overall, I learned a lot today from seeing how the long-term volunteers handled certain situations, and also had a lot of fun celebrating the kids' birthdays!

--Abby White


Also, in the other part of the Youth Center, called the Teen Center, there was a 5-on-5 Basketball Tournament going on for all who registered. So Chase, Mo, Chana, Ula, and two teens, Jacklyn and Wesley, made a team that we called "Team Galaxy." Although none of us were actually good at basketball, the teens that we played against were really nice and took it easy on us. It was really fun, and we got to interact with many teens that go to the Youth Center. If we stayed one more week for another 5-on-5 tournament (that occurs every Friday), we would definitely participate again. :)

--Joanna Solarewicz