My Summer Experience

      I finished my Turner Fellowship last Friday, and could not have been more pleased with the way my summer turned out.  I will admit that I was a little unsure when I heard I had been placed with PTM in April.  Personally, I did not think I was fit to teach younger kids math, science, and reading; however, I quickly learned that the work I would be doing at PTM was much more than that. I remember being nervous about my first day at Summer Salt because I was afraid the kids would not be as quickly accepting of me as the ones I had previously met since I would be someone new to them—missed the first week of programming due to a mission trip to Honduras.  I was dead wrong, and by the end of the day felt dumb for having those fears.   Yes, I do have to teach math, science, and reading, but if you can find a way to make it fun and seem less like school than it is, then the kids enjoy it.

     PTM has exposed me to a whole new world.  It has been eye opening to drive through the neighborhood and to even watch the way some of the kids interact with each other.  I love playing games with the kids, in particular capture the flag, and simply just hanging out with them. Some of the kids I play morning games with, whose names I cannot even remember will often times come and say hi to me.  I know that I have made a difference at PTM when kids I played quarterback for one morning are filled with joy upon seeing me if only for one minute each day. I have formed memorable relationships with both the kids and the staff, and because of this I hope to find time to come to after school programming and form new relationships.
     I have taken field trips to Cumberland Park, a dairy farm, a recycling center, and the law offices of Waller Lansden to name a few.  I have hiked in Edwin Warner Park.  I have watched Like Mike and ate ten bags of popcorn between the ten of us.  I have participated in a slip n’ slide and a water balloon fight in the pouring rain—my favorite day.  It is easy to say that I had a great summer.

"I Wanna Be Like Mike"

      Last Friday—or as I like to call it Fun Friday—was indeed a blast.  It was one of my favorite days at PTM because it allowed me to feel like a kid again.  The Junior High had spent all week at Camp Barefoot and was kind enough to allow Summer SaLT to use the Calvin House on Friday.  Jessie and I decided that we would watch a movie and let the kids just hang out the rest of the time.  Jessie picked up a few movies the night before and we chose to watch Like Mike; however, there was no DVD in the box.  We then proceeded to find the movie online and through process of elimination were able to hook up the computer and speakers from a different computer to the TV (pictured above). It was crazy for me to watch one of my favorite childhood movies—which came out in 2002—and have the majority of the kids love it as much as I do.   There were ten of us watching, nine kids plus me, and we somehow managed to eat ten bags of popcorn.   The kids ate lunch and then proceeded to run wild in the game room and outside playing basketball.   The game room features pool, air hockey, foosball, and a mini basketball hoop.   Joy, who just came back from a week of visiting family before she moves to Hawaii for mission work at the end of the summer, made the kids cleanup the Calvin House because there was popcorn crumbs everywhere.  We finished the day devouring Haley’s, another Turner Fellow, funfetti cookies and cupcakes that she made for us. 

The Frist Center

           

                Last Tuesday, we took a field trip to the Frist Center.  I have not been to the Frist since I was probably seven years old, and I was not a big fan; therefore, I was unsure of what awaited the kids there.  To my surprise, it turned out to be one of the best field trips all summer—besides the one to Waller Lansden of course.  The kids were the most well behaved they had been all summer and had a lot of fun.  To top it all off, the exhibit, Sensuous Steel, was actually really interesting.  It featured some of the coolest old cars that I have ever seen. Wall Street Journal hails the exhibit as, “some of the most indispensable cars in automotive history, all in one place”.  After the exhibit, we went to the Martin ArtQuest—also sponsored by the generous Cal Turner Family Foundation—where the kids spent over an hour drawing, building, tracing, making animated movies, and tons of other fun-filled art activities. Tuesday was a blast, but unfortunately Wednesday was the worst day of the entire summer.  Fun Friday finished the week strong which I will get to in my next post. 

Slip N' Slide

       Last Friday was probably my most fun day working at PTM.  I started the day off by setting up the slip n’ slide and filling a multitude of water balloons. After everything was ready, I headed over to PTM for Summer SaLT. Summer SaLT started the day with a trip to Hadley Park in order for the kids to take pictures with their disposable cameras.  A frequent volunteer, Nan, has been teaching the kids about photography the last couple of weeks and the kids will eventually make a collage using the pictures that they took at Hadley Park.  One kid named Ladarius—pictured above—actually threw away his camera after taking all twenty-seven pictures!  We then traveled to the fields by the Calvin House which is the center where the Junior High meets during the summer.  It features a game room, a recording studio, basketball area, and plenty of space for gatherings.  At the Calvin House, both Summer SaLT and the Junior High enjoyed the slip n’ slide and water balloon fights especially due to the rain. For anyone who has volunteered at PTM one could most likely guess who the first person down the slip n’ slide—it was the man, the myth, the legend, Chan himself.  There was even a boy and a girl time trial at the end which I won in the boys division.  After everyone was down sliding and throwing water balloons, we headed inside to have ice cream. It was a great way to end a great week. 

Robberies

PTM has had a rough patch lately.  This summer, the building has been robbed five times in the last thirteen days.  The most recent robbery was last Saturday; however, before this summer PTM had only been robbed three times in the past six years.  It is the same thing every time—someone shoots out the playground and office door windows with a BB gun—then steals whatever he, or she, can find in the office.  After the second robbery, Chan replaced the locks along with the windows for a second time.  The third break-in occurred over the following weekend, but this time nothing was taken.  Not to mention the windows on the bus door were also shot out. The locks were changed once again.  This time, Chan had the wonderful idea of writing a note to the thief, or thieves, in an attempt to slow the perpetrator(s) down in order for the alarm system to alert the police more quickly.  Above is the picture of the note and Chan did really leave the empty cash box sitting outside the door, but the robber(s) still broke into the office.  Once again nothing was taken.  Thankfully, there have been no break-ins this week which is excellent considering the cost of replacing the windows. Yesterday, a few of the exterior doors’ windows were painted over with some type of hardening mix, and today the rest will have the same thing done.  Hopefully this will be a solution to the problem and no more robberies will occur.   

Obsolete

     Every day at PTM I stay about an hour or two after the Summer SaLT program ends doing tasks that Chan, director of PTM, asks me to complete. These tasks include things such as entering donation checks into the record system or updating the Mac computers in the community computer lab. In the computer lab there are old Mac desktops, really old desktops—not as ancient as the colored Macintoshes—and MacBooks. On Thursday, Will, a PTM employee, and I were charged with installing a printer driver and program called Open Office on all the computers in the lab. Will and I soon learned that we were unable to accomplish either task because the computer software was too old. The software in the lab is Mac OS X 10.4 while the newest software is 10.9 Mountain Lion. To give perspective, Apple has created a vintage list and an obsolete list of their products. All three types of computers are too old to be considered obsolete! For example, I tried to YouTube a video on how to download Open Office and Safari was incapable of running YouTube. At this point in time, there is not much we can do with these computers unless PTM pays a considerable amount to install new software. The kids however still enjoy playing educational games which is what really matters in the end. 

My First Full Week

    
     This summer I am working at Preston Taylor Ministries, PTM, with the Summer SaLT program—servant and leadership training. Summer SaLT consists of a group of fifteen rising fifth and sixth graders who come to PTM Tuesday thru Friday. Luckily, I am not alone in the program. I am joined by volunteers Joy and Jessie. Jessie, a college student, wants to become an inner-city teacher.

     Last week was very action packed. As part of the program, we take field trips on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesday, the group piled into three cars and drove an hour to a small, family owned dairy farm. Both the kids and I enjoyed petting goats—both adult and baby—playing with the huge Pyrenees dogs charged with protecting the animals from coyotes, and watching pigs run around in the mud. Thursday, we traveled to Cumberland Park next to LP Field to play in the fountains. Once again, I enjoyed the playing in the fountains as much as the kids. I even saw Lauren, another Turner Fellow, with a group of fifty-six from Fannie Battle. Friday, five kids and I went to Jessie’s house to cook banana bread and go swimming. Jessie's house was those five kids' favorite day of the week. Two of them enjoyed playing with Jessie’s dogs and went so far as to feed one of the dogs a sock.

    My first full week at PTM was one to remember, and eye-opening to say the least. I was nervous on Tuesday because I was the new one in the group after missing the first week of the program due to a church mission trip to Honduras. I have already formed strong relationships with the kids and look forward to sharing more experiences with them. This week we are going hiking in Edwin Warner Park and visiting the law offices of Waller Lansden followed by a trip to the Bicentennial fountains.