Day of Meetings

Yesterday was an unusual day as I was away from my desk the majority of the day. First, Kristen and I met to work on the program that we have been developing over the past month. We are very close to completing a final draft of our proposal, which we will then present to the Northeastern Athletic Department. We're both very excited about the potential impact this program could have.

After that I met with Aubrey and Lucy to discuss the student group, Huskies for Sport in Society. We spent part of the meeting designing the group's Facebook page, which everyone should make sure to check out and "like."

At noon, Lucy, Nathan, and I went to the Hurley School to conduct the final Playworks' evaluation. The evaluation went well, except for the fact that the kids were not in a serious mood, and had to be re-focused at times.

In the afternoon, Jarrod and I went downtown to meet with Victor Lee at Digitas media. Victor is incredibly smart and resourceful, and had some very good recommendations for expanding our social media presence.

Monday Update

With the start of a new week at Sport in Society, let me inform you of some of the things going on lately. Last Wednesday, Lucy, Mitch, and I went to the Boston Teachers Union School to conduct Playworks' evaluations with Coach Brittany and her group of Playworks' Junior Coaches. The evaluation is an end of year evaluation intended to calculate the impact that the Junior Coaches Leadership Conference had on the school. The students filled out survey's, and also answered some questions we had about bullying in their school. The three of us were all incredibly impressed with the intelligence and maturity level of the children. They answered our questions with exceptional poise, and showed a conscious awareness of both the present and future. I will be conducting evaluations today and tomorrow as well, and I hope they go as well as the BTU one did!

Back in the office, last week had a prominent focus on social media. James and I presented our report the organization's social media presence for the rest of the staff. The staff provided some great follow-up suggestions for expanding our Facebook and Twitter presence, and we have made good progress on these so far. On Tuesday, Jarrod and I will meet with a social media specialist to get some more ideas.

So far today, I have mainly been working on designing a logo for our student group, "Huskies for Sport in Society." The student group is an excellent tool to expand our presence on campus, and raise the collective social awareness of the student body!

Looking back.....and ahead

As many days in our lives seem to endlessly drag on, it is truly amazing to realize how quickly this coop semester flew by. It seems as though it was yesterday that I was walking into Curry and sitting at a table with four other random students getting to learn more about ourselves and exactly what we would be doing for Sport in Society. The friendship that has blossomed between my coworkers and me at Sport in Society is extremely similar to the friendships and professional relationships that I have built at the Wang YMCA. As a YMCA that is extremely rich in culture, I can honestly say that I was very nervous when I was first assigned to this branch. I had gone to high school relatively close to Hyde Park and was much more familiar with the area and its inhabitants. Chinatown was literally foreign territory to me and like most people; I wasn’t so much scared as I was feeling unprepared for what was to come. My first couple weeks at the Wang seem like a blur to me now as I was meeting all these people for the first time in a setting that I was not one hundred percent comfortable with yet. As time went by, I began to become more acclimated to my surroundings and began to build friendships with the staff of the Wang YMCA. They welcomed Lucy and I into their facility and treated us as if we had been working there as long as they had had. If there is one thing that is constant for every students’ coop it is the fact that the people who you work with on a daily basis and the professional relationships that you build along the way are the key factors behind whether a student has a fun and rewarding experience as opposed to a miserable and monotonous six months. I was fortunate enough to work alongside an incredibly gifted staff at Sport in Society and an equally great staff at the Wang YMCA. The only regret I have about this entire experience is that it has to end in roughly two weeks from today.

Explaining my experience at Sport in Society to one of my family members or friends is not an easy task by any means. To them, my mentioning of daily playing kickball and pickup basketball games often overshadows the curriculums and trainings I’ve facilitated and how much character I have built throughout this semester. Accepting this coop and working for Sport in Society for the past six months has literally changed my life and separated me from the path I thought I was on back in November of 2010. Eight months ago I was an unemployed, twenty-one year old pre-law student with a desired future path that would include five more years of school and six figures worth of lifetime debt. Sport in Society gave me that swift kick in the behind that I needed and opened my eyes to a future profession that lets me do the three things I love most: be involved with sports, help people and wake up every morning with a smile on my face. I am truly in debt to the entire organization that is Sport in Society and the people who comprise it.

Kickball

The past few days at Sport in Society have been an absolute blast! On Thursday the other co-ops and I celebrated Frank's birthday by going to the Scooper Bowl for a post-lunch dessert. The Scooper Bowl is an event hosted by the Jimmy Fund outside of city hall. Since being started in 1983, the Scooper Bowl has raised more than $2.9 million for cancer research and care. This year there was a wide variety of exotic ice cream flavors that we were all eager to try. To find out more about the Jimmy Fund, visit their website.

On Friday, it was finally time for the Playworks' kickball tournament. On the Sport in Society team we had all five of the co-ops, Meghan, Dave, Justine Siegal, Nathan, and Rachel, with Jarrod providing moral support (he couldn't play because he had his baby with him). We started out the tournament strong, recording wins while not allowing a run in our first two games. In our third game we quickly fell behind, and our valiant comeback fell just two runs short. In the fourth game, we jumped ahead with a 6-0 lead, but could not hang on for the victory. Despite the less than ideal results, this was an amazing day, as it was a great opportunity to relax with the other co-ops and staff. At the end of the day, to show our appreciation for Meghan and the great way she has treated us, Frank and Aubrey dumped a bucket of ice water on top of her. This was hilarious, and it was a great conclusion to a tremendous afternoon.

Busy Week

This has been a busy week for me here at Sport in Society. On Monday, I completed a summary of all of the things that I have done in my time here, as well as a self-job description for the next co-op. This was a fun activity, as I got to look back on all my fond memories from my time here. I also have been working on a report on our social media with James. We finished the report last week, and now we are working on a PowerPoint presentation, which we will present at the staff meeting this Thursday.

Today, me and Kristen have a meeting with Justine Siegal regarding a new program that we are in the process of developing. I don't want to give away too many details until it is more finalized, but I believe that this program has the potential to be very helpful to many athletes.

On Friday, the rest of the staff and myself will be competing in a kickball tournament with Playworks. I haven't played kickball since elementary school, so it will be very exciting to get out on the diamond for some friendly competition. In general our staff is very competitive, which makes me feel quite confident about our chances for success!

Dream Big! Leadership Conference

Today Frank and I spent the morning at the Dream Big! Leadership Conference. Co-hosted by Sport in Society and Dream Big! the conference was held in Northeastern’s Curry student center and brought middle and high school girls and their teachers/coaches from around Massachusetts, to meet one another, learn about career options from successful female athletes (including several former Olympians), and attend a bullying prevention training lead by Frank and myself (to learn more about the conference and the presenters click here).

Dream Big! Is a wonderful non-profit in the Boston area, founded by Linda Driscoll, that helps low-income and homeless girls participate in sports and physical activity. They do this though donations of equipment and scholarships, which cover things such as program fees and facility rental. Check out Dream Big! here.

Frank and I facilitated the Sport in Society Bullying prevention curriculum during three conference sessions and had a great experience. Although this may seem like it could become repetitive for us presenters…presenting the same material for almost an hour three times in a row… it was actually very interesting and engaging. Each new group of girls had different insights about bullying and shared different experiences about how it affects her community/school and how it has been addressed in her life. What each group did have in common was that bullying is clearly a problem, one which the girls are aware of and do not like it, but that they may not have all the tools to deal with effectively. Several students expressed frustration that adults in their communities/schools did not pay attention to bullying occurring between kids and one particularly engaged middle schooler asked Frank and I if we had ever been bullied in our lives. When we responded that we had she asked us how we handled it and what she and her peers are supposed to do when they are faced with situations of bullying. As it was coming to the end of our session time we were only able to discuss options for a few minutes. On the one hand the sessions today left me feeling that students today face much more drastic forms of bullying even than the forms that were in existence when I was in middle school ten years ago. The vast technology available to today’s youth means that bullying is always happening, occurring on a larger scale, and kids can’t get away from it. On the other hand, I left proud of the girls who we spoke with today because so many of them are strong leaders and are dedicated to being positive role models in their communities/schools.

I hope that each of the girls enjoyed their experience today and had fun, we certainly did!

Building Gardens

Today was one of the most fun days I've had at Sport in Society, as Lucy, Kristen, Caitlin, Meghan and myself worked with members of The Food Project to build gardens in Dorchester. This was a wonderful experience, and I would like to thank Andrew Olson from Northeastern's Center for Community Service for organizing the event. The Food Project is an amazing organization that produces healthy food for residents of cities and suburbs by building them gardens, and showing them farming techniques. Find out more about The Food Project on their website.

To build the gardens, we drilled together pieces of wood so they formed a rectangle either three by five feet, or four by eight feet, and about a foot and a half high. We then placed protective tarps underneath the rectangles, and put nutritious soil on top of the tarps to complete the garden. Since much of the soil in Boston is either contaminated or unfit for growing plants, we had to use soil that had been delivered to us. Overall, we built 21 gardens!

Another exciting exciting aspect of today was that we got to meet, and work with some of our summer interns for the first time. Mitch, Nathan, and Andre all did an excellent job, and if today is any indication of the future they will be great additions to the Sport in Society team! Another intern, James has been working here for the past few weeks, and it has been very pleasant having him around the office. The rest of the interns start tomorrow, and I am looking forward to meeting them!

Healthy Kids Day @ the Wang YMCA

This past Saturday a fantastic event, Healthy Kids Day, was held at the Wang YMCA. Healthy Kids Day is an annual event held by YMCAs around the country aimed to increase kids’ awareness of how to live a healthy life and what it means to be healthy. I spent a lot of time helping to plan the Wang’s Healthy Kids Day, and am happy to report that the event was great and drew a full house. I think that Saturday’s event was a showcase for a successful event that includes many sectors of the community. Although the event was aimed at kids, there were people of all ages and backgrounds in attendance. Many community groups and businesses volunteered their time to participate, from the police to health professionals to a traditional Chinese dance group. Best of all….everyone had FUN!

Below are some highlights from the day!

Healthy snacks were donated and served to get kids thinking about eating right and cutting out junk foods. Wholefoods market sent three very creative employees who got kids eating veggies by challenging them to create a “veggie face” on a plate and then eat all the veggies to win a prize.

The Beantown Jumpers showed the crowed a doublt dutch routine.

Northeastern’s ballroom dance team performed an awesome dance (and then was asked to come back out for an encore!). NUBallroom is a great group that is hoping to continue to work with the Wang to teach dance classes to kids in the after school and summer program in the coming months!

Girls perform traditional Chinese Dance!

A volunteer led kids in fitness activities!

"SlutWalk" Facilitation Workshop

On Saturday, I facilitated a sexual assault awareness workshop with participants of the "SlutWalk" rally. "SlutWalk" is a recent movement protesting sexual assault, aimed particularly at changing the victim-blaming culture that surrounds sexual assault. The initial "SlutWalk" rally took place in Toronto, after a local police officer stated that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." The rally drew a crowd of over 3,000 protesters, inspiring others to organize "SlutWalk" events in other cities.

The workshop that I facilitated took place after the march itself, and was part of a series of other workshops and presentations. The primary activity that I did with the participants was engage them in the activity of "Agree, Disagree, Unsure" which involved me reading a statement, and then asking people whether they agree, disagree, or are unsure of the statements validity, and to explain why they feel the way that they do. The participants were extremely passionate about the statements that I read, and were very eager to share their views. Since the participants were all activists, dissenting opinions were rare, yet that did not prevent the group from having thoughtful discussions. All in all it was a tremendous experience, as it feels great to raise awareness regarding the important issue of sexual assault.

YMCA Strength and Conditioning Program

Yesterday I visited Frank at the Wang YMCA to check out his strength and conditioning program. Frank has done an excellent job designing a program that has a wide range of exercises, and is appealing to both genders. The kids are very serious about the program, and are lucky to have such a great instructor leading it.

Here are some photos:

YMCA Field Trip to Northeastern

On Friday, a group of children from the Wang YMCA's after school program came to Northeastern for a field trip. As part of the trip, they got to meet and play games with Northeastern athletes, ask the athletes questions, and go on a scavenger hunt around campus. The kids were enamored with the experience, as many had never before seen a college campus.

I want to give a big thank you from everyone at Sport in Society to all of the Northeastern athletes that came out (during finals week) and spent time with the kids. I also want to thank the kids for attending, and the YMCA staff for bringing them.

Here are some photos of the event: