Servicelearningacademy's Blog

Alicia Sitting on her Tent

"Ahhhh...My marshmallow is on fire!"

On March 27-28, 2010, a small group of 7 students, Alicia Ward, Caleb Jones, Cassy Cuellar, Randy Moreno, Cesar Bautista, Jessie Romo, and Elais Laurilla and two teachers, Kristy Reeves and Savannah Harte, took a camping trip to Pace Bend Travis County Park to do some community service for the Pace Bend Bicycle Race.

Everyone met up at the school on March 27^th at 4:00pm with all their gear ready to go camping! We arrived at Pace Bend and set up camp. Everyone got their very own tent to set up and sleep in. After we set up our tents, we put on our swimwear and walked down to the freezing cold water and skipped rocks.

When we all had enough of the freezing water we walked back to camp and cooked hot dogs on the grill and ate our dinner around the campfire. Then before we went to bed we made smores and bonded around the campfire.

The next morning we all woke up at 7:00am and immediately walked over to the bike race to sign ourselves in as volunteers. Once we were done with that we went to our post and got ready to hand out water bottles to the bikers that were about to pass by. When we were done with that we got complimentary Subway meals and then we packed our stuff up and went back home. The trip was great and I feel like everyone there really got to know each other a lot better and we’re all closer than we’ve ever been!

Alicia Ward, CCorps member

We walked out of the room panting and dripping sweat, the windows were fogged and we felt good. On Friday the 5^th of March, Bike Club went to a spin class! At approximately 12:30 we were on the road singing songs and wondering where exactly our leaders were taking us, rumor had it we were headed to San Marcos but no one was really sure. Everyone was asking questions and the only answers we got after the forty minute drive were “It’s a surprise” and “Get ready to sweat”. All the members were in suspense. I walked into the all glass room eager to begin; thinking it’ll be fun but didn’t seem like much of a work out. Five minutes in, everyone was dripping sweat and had a strong blush tone to them. Some people couldn’t take it but most made it all the way through. After it was over we began the attempt to leave but everyone was pumped up and just wanted to talk and play around. We eventually left and stopped by a restaurant and got some free sandwiches because the gym gave us some coupons. We left a little apprehensive but came back full and invigorated. What a work out, what a day and what a great club to be apart of!

–Cassy Cuellar, CCorps member

On Friday February 5^th, C – Corps was visited by a group called Technology Corps (T – Corps). They journeyed from San Antonio to observe and experience American Youthworks and programs at the school first hand. First Computer Corps showed them a power point presentation on how they operate in their refurbishing lab and the different service learning activities they do for the community. Afterwards the C – Corps team took T – Corps on a tour, they divided them into four groups and were taken to four different locations. These locations consisted of, The Garden, Refurbishing Lab, Americorps office area, and their Service Learning Academy. As the tour followed some of the T – Corps individuals were surprised of some of the programs that AYW offered. Some were intrigued that students that have children could be in the same room with their child while working on their school work. Others were blown away by a blacksmithing program and got to see some different types of work done by students. Lastly, C – Corps played a couple of technology related games with T – Corps, answered any questions T – Corps had about their whole experience and shared our appreciation tradition.

Blog written by Gabriel Morales, edited by Cassy Cuellar

On Tuesday February 16^th, ten Computer Corps (C-Corps) members spent the day with the Whole Foods IT Department.  The members were paired up with Whole Foods IT Team Members in a Job Shadowing experience to learn more about the corporation, the career field, and themselves.  Below is one member’s description of the event.

 “We viewed a highly planned presentation then C-Corps members were paired up in teams with mentors from Whole Foods. The store is connected to the corporate headquarters. And we took a tour of the facility, the grocery store and the corporate offices. We saw the basic systems of a major company, how they function on a daily basis, and the opportunities for working for this company. During our tour we discovered that the departments are actually like small businesses and they manage their own budgets and buy their own supplies.  After our tour, we had a lunch of assorted Whole Foods goods. It was delicious, and then we took a tour of our mentors work stations.”

“After that we went to the server room. Servers are basically huge computers which produce a lot of heat and they need to be kept cool in climate-controlled areas. The cooling systems and back up power systems keep them from overheating and losing important data. In addition, we viewed the server repair room.”

“Our mentors showed us what the corporate world has to offer us and the importance of graduating from high school and moving along to a higher education. We were there to see how information technology (IT) Staff perform their daily duties and work tasks.”

“This was an eye opening experience and we had a choice to attend this event.  The choice to attend opportunities like this is yours.”

Jenny Rodriguez plants a tree at MLK Service Day

Americorps members, Service Learning Academy students, and staff participated in the MLK service day January 16^th beginning at Huston-Tillotson University; hosted by Hands on Central Texas. We listened to the main speaker, DR. Richard Reddick, and other amazing speakers, ate free breakfast tacos, and saw a performance by Cipher, a group founded by Jeff Da’shade Johnson. Cipher is a street project for outreach to youth in our community. Also, we heard a speech from a 4^th grader named Lamar, A little boy with a big heart. I must say he was an amazing speaker; his speech was about Dr. King and how proud of us he would be for the work we were doing that day.  After the festivities, we went to a site and planted trees one by one. We also helped each other dig and break through compounded soil so we could plant the young saplings in their new homes in order to spread their roots through the foundation. In the midst of digging we learned an important lesson—team work. It was hot but we worked together in our efforts to help our community.  –Elais Laurila, CCorps member

A podcast is an audio recording meant to be downloaded from the internet. This podcast took us a long time to make. We used mics, a mixer, a guitar, a laptop, and several hours of revisions and recording to make this happen. It took us about a day and a half to research all the information before we could even write the script. CCorps members were split up into groups of four and every group was assigned to make their own podcast. Our group chose evolution because we thought it would interesting for a large group of people. The members of our group were Gabrielle Morales, Randy Moreno, Evan Hobratsch, and me (Sam Lindsey). We enjoyed making it and we hope you enjoy it too.

EVOLUTION

–Sam Lindsey, CCorps member

On Saturday, December 12^th, Computer Corps and some members of Green Energy Corps took out time on the weekend to go down to Blue Santa and helped wrap presents for families to open on Christmas.

We arrived at Blue Santa around 12pm and when we got there we almost had to leave because they didn’t have enough for us to do but they said they would take us on a tour. While they took us on the tour of the warehouse they explained some details about what exactly they do. After that they took us into a big room filled with cardboard boxes and taught us how to fold up the boxes and tape them together. We folded up about 50 boxes and stacked them on top of each other.

When we finished that they took us over to some tables with bags that said boys ages 3-4 told us all to grab a bag and go over to the boxes of toys and pick out, 1book, 1game, and 1stocking stuffer which was like a hot wheels toy or an action figure. Once we filled our bags with toys we grabbed a piece of blue wrapping paper and wrapped up our bags and put them in boxes to be shipped off.

The Blue Santa service day was a lot of fun. After we finished all of our service we all got to sign our names on a big long wall so we could be recognized for our help!

–Alicia Ward, CCorps member

The Green Energy Corps program is a great part of Americorps and the Service Learning Academy. It teaches students how to weatherize homes for families who can’t afford the service or the monthly bill for electricity.

Weatherizing a house has a few benefits, for the resident and for the environment. For example, when a house gets weatherized it gets a complete makeover to keep the temperature in the house at a certain level—warm in the winter and cool in the summer. By doing this, the house reduces the usage of electricity anywhere from thirty to ninety-five percent which means the electricity bill will go down and the family can have more money in their pocket. This can also mean the energy plants won’t have to burn as much coal to produce electricity and prevent higher amounts of pollution or toxic waste from nuclear plants. Due to this we can have a safer environment for our children and our grandchildren. Not to mention, it is also a good way to stop global warming and less animals will die off or go extinct because of record breaking temperatures.

–Cesar Bautista, GEC Member

CCorps Trainer, Matt, and Warnetta celebrate the induction of new members

Teisha's mom brought food for the potluck to show her support

October 4^th through the 17^th I, Caleb Jones, attended the Computer Corps orientation in hopes of having the privilege of joining the AmeriCorps program. Though a lot of the orientation involved paper work and reviewing the policies and procedures, other members and I, had a lot of fun with the teambuilding activities. I learned a lot of things about computers that I did not know before, and a lot about the actual program. The first week was basically paperwork, but when week two started–the fun began. I got to take apart and put together a computer, which is something I have never done before and it was an awesome experience. We also took a trip a Goodwill that refurbishes computers, and got to see their computer museum. AYW student, Ateisha Flint, said “I really enjoyed volunteering at the River City Youth, and the marble game we played.” Unfortunately, not everyone who attended orientation made it in, though everyone was a worthy candidate, there were only so many spots open. About twenty other students and I are now AmeriCorps members, and we all look forward to what lies ahead in the Computer Corps program.

By,

Caleb Jones

On Wednesday, October 3rd, a large group of AYW students and staff along with members from the local bike shop, Bicycle Sport Shop,

Ridin' Bikes

 took a trip to McKinney Falls to ride one of the several hike and bike trails in the park. For many of the students it was the first time they had ridden a bike in outdoor terrain. Bicycle Sport Shop contributed greatly by providing bikes for the students and lessons on how to repair them should a student find him/herrself in a situation requiring some know-how. AYW student Caleb Jones said, “Not only was it probably the most fun field trip I’ve been on, but the burgers were delicous.”

Hopefully we can continue to provide more unorthodox, but still fun field trips for the students at AYW such as this one.

By: Bill Shannon