5 posts tagged “first hundred days”

I met my "little sister" this afternoon!

H is a super cute and very bright kid. She seems very excited to have a new friend who will be just for her, that she doesn't have to share with her siblings or anyone else. She was so excited about getting together for our first real visit that she actually calculated the number of days in hours (72) until we can have our first outing! :-) This is one bright kid, considering she did that in her head and she's only 8 years old. She has pretty green eyes, a very engaging smile, and a sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. It's hard not to smile when you look at her. I'm really looking forward to spending a couple hours with her on Saturday and getting to know her better.

Will keep you all posted on further progress...will write more after we get together this Saturday.

I get to meet my new "little sister" this afternoon, the one from children's services. She lives in a very bad area of town but at least I won't be going alone for my first visit; my volunteer coordinator will be taking me there. I'm a little nervous...I hope that I like her and that she likes me. H is 8 years old, and I know a little bit about her: she likes lasagne, is a voracious reader (my kind of kid!), is on the honor roll, and is a little shy. She's the "good kid" in her family and her mother signed her up for this program because she feels she doesn't get enough attention because of her siblings.

I'm already eager to set up our first outing, but I'm not sure what to do with her. I have all sorts of ideas for future outings--baking cookies, making pizza, walking my dogs, going to the book store, getting ice cream, going to the playground, going to the movies, helping me plant flowers--but I'm not sure what's appropriate for a first outing. I want her to have fun. I also want to be careful not to set a "Santa Claus" precedent by always buying her things or taking her places that cost money; we were warned about this by children's services, so I want to stay away from anything "spendy" for our first visit. Ideas or thoughts, anyone?

Remember this little resolution, from way back in January? Well, to fulfill my service component I decided to volunteer with my county's children's services office to be a "big sister" to an at-risk little girl. Today I met with the volunteer coordinator and spent about an hour and a half going over the program with her, filling out paperwork and just asking/answering questions.

In April I'll go to a special 2-hour training program where I'll also be fingerprinted and background checked, and then I'll be matched with a handful of girls; I'll be given confidential information about their living situations and abuse histories, and then I'll get to choose which one I get to be paired with. There's no pressure for me to choose a particular child or age...I can work with any child I want to for any reason. I can do anything with her that I want to, from baking cookies at my house to gardening to walking my dogs to going to the library. I have to commit to a minimum of six months, meeting with the child twice a month. I'm a little nervous, but am really looking forward to it!

A quick update...I made contact with my county's children's services volunteer coordinator, and I'm going to start in the first week of March. I'll be doing a "big sisters" type of program, where I'm paired up with an abused child and I spend time with her. I'm a little nervous about it, but am also looking forward to it; I hope that I can bring some light and happiness to a child's life. I decided to wait until March because of my move and then oral surgery (February's going to be a rip-roaring good time at Farfaraway), since this is a minimum six-month commitment. I have to go through an interview, background screening and fingerprinting, for all the obvious reasons, but I'm assuming I'll be able to start pretty quickly. So we'll see...

I saw this on writebrained's blog and thought it was a fantastic idea...and so much more invigorating and achievable than stupid New Year's resolutions, which always set people up for failure. This meme is supposed to mimic our new President's first hundred days' challenges, and since President Obama (oh, how I LOVE writing that) is already cooking and getting rid of all sorts of Bush detritus, I'm inspired to do my own checklist.

Here are the rules, taken from writebrained's Vox: