Archive for November 2nd, 2008
A City Year
For the last two months, and until June 2009, I’ll be spending my weeks mentoring and tutoring middle schoolers, aiding and running service projects throughout San Antonio, and learning how to be a leader.
I’m part of a program called City Year, a national service organisation for young people between 17 and 24. They dedicate a year to service in one of the 18 sites across the US (plus one in South Africa).
The days since September have been incredible, and I’ve been trying to document them as best I can. This is an experience that changes you, as I’ve already seen in the two months so far. I want to be able to look back afterwards and see how it has done so, and share that process with others. Some of these will have incorrect information or points of view that I now disagree with, and I’ll still considering how to deal with it. I’d like to leave much of it as it was written, reflecting how I thought at the time. At the same time, I’ll try to note these errors or changes when they occur.
It should be noted, of course, that everything I write here is my own opinion, not that of City Year. I’d like to think that’s part of the benefit — my experience, as it happens, without the changing perceptions of hindsight.
I have a stack of journal entries from the last few weeks, waiting to be posted. This first one is undated, written at the beginning of one of the first days.
Date: Undated, written on the back of a flyer from the first day.
As I write this, I’m beginning a 40 minute bus ride early in the morning. The sun has just barely begin to rise, and I’ll be taking this same ride every weekday for the next 10 months. I’ve never been a big fan of sunrises, and I’m much more likely to see them from the other side of the clock.
The point of these predawn 40 minute rides is a program called City Year. It’s a volunteer program that takes young adults from 17-24 and gives them a chance to work in one of 7(?) (actually, 19) sites across the US and one in South Africa.
They work on literacy in elementary schools, mentoring and homework help in middle and high schools, spend time on a long list of community development projects, and hopefully have some fun doing it.
Of course, fun in this case also involves getting up before dawn for nearly a year of ten hour workdays. That’s part of the challenge, though, and it’s nearly as attractive as having some small impact on a community or school.
The next year should be interesting.