Riverside: First Group of Fall 2010

It's my favorite time of the semester again: the groups do their interventions in Riverside.  Girl Power kicked off the week yesterday.

Although we started with a small group, by the end of the afternoon we had about 25 kids working with us, and 3 moms.

Quite a few children brought in their homework and asked for assistance.  Tutoring was actually the initial reason we went into the community back in 2006.  Even now, when I drive up, the kids ask "is it tutoring?"  Sunday afternoon as I hung the flyers to announce our visit yesterday, one little boy across the street yelled out "It's the tutoring lady!"  We finished up with Bingo, snacks, and prizes of pencils before the children headed home as it began to get dark.

The group did a great job, and I believe it is important for the students as well as the community.  Our consistency has been one of the important contributions for the community.  One mother whom I have known since we first began stopped on her way out and we hugged in the street, glad to see each other again.  She has been a staunch supporter of our presence and I have watched her daughters grow up to be fine young women.

As always, it is rewarding to me to see the groups in action, watch as their planning comes together, and see how they are developing their skills as future social workers.  It is always interesting to see how a diverse group of students work out becoming a group, and though I never know how it will turn out, I do know it turns out--in spite of their differences, or perhaps at times, because of them.  I always learn things about the students as well, like sometimes how different they are in an activity like this from how they are in the classroom.  It is like I get to see who they really are, and who they will be as social workers when they are out of the classroom.

Good work, women!  You set the bar high for the rest of the interventions.