Wow. That was what I thought first when it occurred to me how behind I am in this whole blogging process. If I work fast, I can write about two thousand words a night for the next week and be caught up. This is such a daunting task, especially in the week right before finals. But I have no one to blame but myself. I guess I kept putting off writing in my blog because I was waiting for something concrete to write down in the way of implementation. I was getting depressed by the overwhelming task of improving the world again, even though I was beginning to “see the light” of this project. I began to understand that the aim of the projects was not to make the evening news with our accomplishments; it was not to earn us each a Nobel Peace Prize for our weekly two thousand words. I think that my qualms about the success of my project were somewhat relieved when I got some help from a very unlikely source.
I was always unsure of how successful this project would be. At the risk of sounding like someone passing the blame, I did not think that the relative failure of this project would be my fault. I thought that finding a facility to house the project would be a stretch. People can not exactly walk into a foster home and say, “hey! let me help these kids!” Group homes, shelters, and almost any place where I might try and implement the program are facilities which are usually staffed by trained professionals. A college student like me would probably be of little value to a team of licensed social workers and caregivers. I would probably be seen as little more than a volunteer, needed only to pass out cookies at snack time or help the kids play kickball outside. I just could not envision an establishment exhibiting a real need for me or any of my services. Then, if they did in fact want me to come and implement any program there, I thought that there would be legal barriers that would prevent even the most welcoming of establishments from allowing me to come in and work so closely with the children. I was certain that most foster homes, being government institutions, probably operated under some kind of government-enforced stipulations that protected the rights and privacy of the children in the care of these various homes. In addition, my predictions about our week eight assignment were coming true—I had received no response to my letters, which was understandable. I just didn’t expect it to work. I considered all of these obstacles, and I could not help but feel somewhat resigned.
That is, until the morning of November sixth. The freshman class was hosting a volunteer project as the culmination of its homecoming activities. The officers and homecoming court had arranged for us, the class of 08, to play host and hostess to bus-loads of little kids from around the area. We were supposed to take them on tours of the campus, play outside with them, and help them with arts and crafts projects. It did not sound like too taxing of a venture, so I did not mind waking up early this Saturday and contributing my time and energy to the cause—you know I love the kids. The only problem was, there were no bus-loads of little kids. There were bus-loads of freshmen, but what looked like a handful of little kids showed up that morning. I suppose it was a nice thought that our class seemed to be so philanthropic that, as volunteers, we outnumbered our “voluntees”, but it was only that—a thought. The reality remained that there were too many freshman or too few children. So, as the kids sat and ate the bag lunches they had brought with them, the freshmen signed themselves up in groups of four or five to be assigned to take groups of children. I used this opportunity to go to my room and get something. I asked one of the class officers whether she thought that I had enough time to do this, and she said, “oh yes. of course”. One of us was wrong, because when I came back, I was walking in the opposite direction of my classmates and their groups of kids. I thought, “They already passed out the kids! And I wanted some!” I went back to the lobby where all of the kids had been, and saw one of the women who had accompanied the kids. She directed those freshmen who didn’t get kids to go upstairs and help with the arts and crafts project. We followed her to the meeting room and helped her set up the art project. While waiting for the first group of kids to come in, I got curious. I asked the woman what kind of organization she was with, and she told me that she was with a group called Café Reconcile. She went on to explain that as a part of Café Reconcile, kids would come in on the weekends and get tutoring and test- prep assistance. The first group of kids came in the room, and I started to help Santrell and Shantrell (twins—go figure) with their candle wax creations. I remembered how much I like working with kids, and then I remembered something else: my blog. I approached the woman from Café Reconcile with my idea. Because I felt like I was trying to sell her something, I felt a bit weird telling her about my theology project, but I did. And to my surprise, she seemed delighted at the idea of having someone come in and work with the Café Reconcile youth in that manner. She told me her name, Jennifer Page, and gave me her e-mail address and cell phone number. I contacted Ms. Page via email today and am currently awaiting a response.
I wanted to know what kind of place Café Reconcile was, to get an idea of the environment in which my project would be operating. So, I went online and did some research on Café Reconcile and found some helpful information, including this excerpt from their website (www.cafereconcile.com):
Café Reconcile is located at 1631 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (Dryades Street) in New Orleans resurging Central City just 3 blocks from the CBD. The Café is in the turn-of-the-century Lott\’s Furniture building now owned by the non-profit Reconcile New Orleans.
Café Reconcile is a non-profit project of Reconcile New Orleans and the St. John Francis Regis Hospitality School, a program of Fr. Harry Tompson, S.J., and Immaculate Conception Jesuit Church. The school provides at-risk teens and young adults with the skills they need to succeed in jobs in the hospitality industry. Students learn the rudiments of the restaurant business from mopping to maitre d\’.
We are sent by God to create an apostolic enterprise which will bring together people of different economic, social and racial backgrounds for mutual growth and appreciation.
We are sent to prepare young people of the Dryades Street Area through education, training to function successfully in basic jobs of the hospitality industry, and thereby take their place as good, self-supporting and productive citizens in New Orleans.
From the information on the website, Café Reconcile sounds like an ideal place to implement my project. It is a project that seeks to improve the lives of young people by broadening the opportunities available to them. This is an aim not unlike that of my project, which seeks to do the same by imparting critical skills and knowledge to these young girls.
I guess after all of this—my harrowing adventure of a story, the information I found on the website—the question still remains: what is the status of my project where implementation is concerned? I am aware that the preceding may seem like an attempt to fill space, to bring me closer to catching up on the ten thousand words I have neglected. To an extent, that may be true. Ten thousand words is a lot of words. But, I took the time to elaborate so thoroughly on the events if that fateful weekend because I think that the end result was a major step up in the birth of my project. A lot of the reservations I had to begin with were eradicated in that one meeting with Ms. Page, but I still have to cover a lot of ground before I can be satisfied with the status of this blog endeavor. Hopefully my classmates will respond to this blog and offer insight as they have done in the past. But now it is time for me to step back and evaluate my project to find the answer to the question I’ve just asked myself—where does this project stand?
First of all, I need to finalize a written form of my project that I can submit to Ms. Page. I plan to adapt my Week three blog to a more acceptable format, and include all of the necessary details of the proposed curriculum. I have been accumulating activities and worksheets to be incorporated as a part of the “Modular” section of the program, and I should probably try and work out a concrete timeline of events for the progression of the project. This also encourages me somewhat as far as my progress is concerned, because I failed to realize that I had been compiling information for the program all this time. But I have, and with the help of my grandmother (a retired educator) I have been working on building a real set of guidelines and curriculum for the program.
I also think that this project could benefit from a name. A catchy or motivational acronym would be nice, and it would prevent me from using terms like “my project” repeatedly. Had it not been for Hurricane Ivan, I probably would have had to come up with a name for my project when we designed the logos, but we never designed said logos, and so my project remains nameless.
Another issue that I will have is that of transportation. I only know the physical address of Café Reconcile based on the information I found on the internet. I have no idea to get there, and the question of how I would get there is also of some concern to me. I have no problem utilizing the public transit system of New Orleans, and I suppose that is a task that I will finally have to undertake. Hailing from Baton Rouge, mass transit is not very feasible, and so I have never had to learn how to get from A to B via bus or subway. I made an unsuccessful attempt earlier in the year to gain some sort of mastery of the New Orleans bus system using New Orleans Rapid Transit Association online. That did not work. So, necessity seems to be forcing me to learn my way around New Orleans, or at least to and from Café Reconcile.
Compiling a written curriculum and learning my way around town are not difficult tasks, but I have now burdened myself with the issue of time. It has come down to the wire, and I cannot envision a successful end to this project before our grades are decided. Part of me doesn’t care about the grade; I just want to actually see this blog thing through to fruition. Unfortunately, a bigger part of me is very concerned about the grade.
I want this blog to become so much more than a weekly two thousand words which I write and forget as soon as I press “Post”. I have realistic goals set for the success of this project, although I cannot reasonably assert that it will come to pass before the semester’s end. I hope that as I update my blog, these two thousand words do not appear to be just talk. I have taken this project seriously, I have taken the initiative, and I hope that it will show in the end.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2004 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Project Progress, Week 09: Implementation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.