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• LITERAL
  (a) Statement saying: “I, student name, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”
  (b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component
  (c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours).   Post it next to your mentorship log.
• (d) Explanation of what you completed.    
• INTERPRETIVE 
  Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  
  
• APPLIED
  How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. 

LITERAL

a)I, Bradley Yamashita, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.

b) my mentor, Octavia Sisley

c)

d) Extra mentorship hours

INTERPRETIVE

I worked extra hours at mentorship, which I believed was the best idea for my independent component. I spent time in the office, the kitchens, or in the family center. When in the office, I created logistics, spreadsheets, and prepared envelopes to be mailed out to volunteers. In the kitchen, I helped prepare meals and organize volunteer groups (telling them what to bring, how many, proper attire, etc.). In the family center, I was essentially a housekeeper, cleaning the facility and taking care of chores.

APPLIED

I think it helped me understand because of how much work is put into the organization. It's not just giving out meals to homeless, it's really devoting yourself to different events, logistics and several other things that go into the organization running smoothly. For example, our annual event, Dinner in the Park i a huge event. We have around 600-700 volunteers, and we serve around 4,000 people. Planning it with my mentor was tough work, what with all the volunteer names we had to keep track of, boxes of supplies we had to prepare, and letters to volunteers that needed mailing.

This is one of the many things i do in the office. This is a wish list for the Station that we send out to all our volunteers. 

This piece of art was created after our Thanksgiving Dinner in the Park. It's called the "Thankful Tree", where volunteers wrote down why they are thankful and we put this together.

Final draft of the wish list we sent out to volunteers. Looks a lot prettier right?

I also have to file a lot of papers. A LOT.

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Content:

1. Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your Lesson 2 Presentation and why? 
I think my talking was very strong, my content and information was precise and I believe I made time, as well. I think overall I did pretty well.

2. Questions to Consider
       a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation (self-assessment)?

       AP

       b.     Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 component contract.

       I think I did very well with eye contact, speaking loud and clear and engaging the audience. My activity could've used some work though.

3. What worked for you in your Lesson 2?

Just talking about my topic, as obvious as it sounds. Letting the knowledge I have on my topic kind of speak for itself, and try to be as informative and thorough as possible.

4.  (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would you have done differently to improve your Lesson 2?

Remember to bring my final lesson draft, and not worry about time so much, because I ended it kind of awkwardly at the end trying to get as much time as possible.

5. Finding Value
What do you think your answer #2 is going to be?  

"Providing resources necessary to allow homeless to build themselves toward self sustainability."

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1. How did you become interested in homeless social services?

2. Was it something you were always interested in, or did something happen that really got you interested in it?

3. How has doing this as a career changed you?

4. Do you see yourself doing this until retirement?

5. What makes this so enjoyable to you?

6. If the college you saw what you were doing right now, what would their reaction be?

7. Speaking of college, what did you major in? How much did that help you now?

8. What is one thing about this career that makes it more unique than others?

9. If you had to talk someone into chasing this a career, what would you pitch to them?

10. Name one moment that speaks to you the most. Like, where you just thought "man, I love my job" when it happened.

Blog 11

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

Union Station Homeless Services

2.   Who is your contact?

Octavia Sisley

3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?   

60

4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.

Helping with logistics, planning orientations, set up for events, and office work.

5.   Email your house teacher the name of your contact and their phone number confirming who they should call to verify it.  

For sure.

Blog 10

1.  It is important to consistently work on your senior project, whether it is break or we are in school.  What did you over the break with your senior project?

I continued to do mentorship, working out logistics of our recent Dinner in the Park event, along with beginning to create orientation plans for new volunteers.

2.  What was the most important thing you learned from what you did and why?  What was the source of what you learned?
I learned that social work, while helping others, is also a lot of planning, logistics and organization. My source was working first hand on one of the biggest events at Union Station.

3.  If you were going to do a 10 question interview on questions related to answers of your EQ, who would you talk to and why?

I would interview my mentor, Octavia Sisley, because she, being my mentor, is obviously very knowledgeable on the topic of homeless social services and has taught me everything I've learned throughout the year. I look forward to allowing her to help me expand my knowledge.

extra blog post for december

This month at Union Station was pretty uneventful, but definitely very busy. I aided my mentor in preparing for Dinner in the Park for Christmas, which is so so similar to the Thanksgiving event. It was a whole lot less work however, because since people, for whatever reason, feel more need to give back on Thanksgiving and not on Christmas, there is less preparation to be made. That doesn't mean there is not your fair share of work, as my mentor and I had to deal with several angry volunteers, saying how mad they are that they missed registration and can't give back, or trying to drop off food that we cannot accept. Luckily, the event turned out great, like it always does, and I look forward to volunteering and mentoring in 2014.

Extra Blog Post: November

This month at Union Station, we were all focusing on the upcoming Dinner in the Park event that's held annually at Central Park, where we feed the homeless a delicious Thanksgiving meal. 

So, for a lot of the time we would be putting together several signs and making flyers, making phone calls to volunteers and working out logistics. It was stressful. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this experience, however, it really helped me understand planning out events and work on my skills as a manager of sorts of a program.