Meghan Leonard-Teen Reach and Theater Program in Peoria

While volunteering at Teen Reach in Charleston, I was able to help with many different things.  When I first arrived I helped make the snack for the students, and then I helped to serve them.  After snack the children were able to go and have free play.  I then went around and asked the children if they needed any help with homework or finding things on the internet.  After about an hour, the children were asked to join us in the main room for Social Bingo.  During the game I wrote out all the letters and numbers were called so that the children would be able to keep track of their score.  When the game was over it was time for the children to be taken home.  I helped to bring the children to the van and make sure they were all there.  I spent 3 hours at Teen Reach.
During my time at Teen Reach I was able to apply different concepts learned in class to my experience.  From learning about families who are disadvantaged it helped to me understand where some of these children might be coming from.  It also allowed me to know why some of the teens were more aggressive towards their friends.  Also, the class helped me to better relate to the teens, and allowed me to talk with the teens in a way that was comfortable for them.  I believe that as a volunteer I helped those children out.  They were excited to have someone new there to help and talk with.  They kept asking me if I was going to come back and hang out with them again.  This was very touching because I felt like I wasn't really contributing that much to Teen Reach, but obviously having people around is just enough for the teens.
Below are the pictures of me cooking snack and in front of their months news calendar discussing the upcoming events at Teen Reach.

The next volunteer site I went to was a low-income Catholic School in Peoria, IL where I helped the Elementary aged children to put on the play, The Wizard of Oz.  I was able to help keep the children in line and get them ready before going out on stage.  I also helped to move the set around, as well as clean up after the show was over.
During this experience concepts from class helped me to better understand that school is a place where children are able to create and participate in activities that they may not be able to do because of their home lives.  Being able to interact with these children and help them put on a show for their community and school was very rewarding because they were very passionate about making their performance special.
Below is a picture of some of the set moving/cleaning up that I did.  The children also helped in cleaning/moving the set, and were very thankful for my help.