The plan for our second event was to host a Thanksgiving themed afternoon with some kids in the local Raleigh area. We wound up working with an after school care program at Abbott 's Creek Elementary school where we played the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special and helped the kids decorate turkeys and color some Charlie Brown Thanksgiving coloring pages.
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We wanted to provide an opportunity for local kids in the area to learn one new thing about Thanksgiving before they leave the two hour event.
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We wanted kids to leave our two hour event with at least one object/craft that they created that can be brought home and shown to their parents.
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We wanted every individual who comes to our event to spend time with at least three new people during the two hours they were there
Bella
The Thanksgiving program was overall a really great experience. I thought it went swimmingly and I had a lot of fun, even with the time crunch we were on. I was a little nervous as I don’t have a ton of experience working with kids and I didn’t know if we’d all get along while making some hand turkeys. I might be biased because I love the Peanuts, but I thought the coloring pages and the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie were really fun. Preparing for this event was a lot less stressful because we didn’t have to advertise for it and we really just had to collect some art supplies for the kids and pop a lot of popcorn. I also felt better going into because we had just hosted a successful first program and knew we could do it, so I felt more confident in ourselves. I really enjoyed watching the movie and making a hand turkey with the kids, even though some of them were tough critics and rated my hand turkey a measly 3 out of 17. Overall, I would definitely say this program was a success and I’m glad we did a program for kids because I actually really enjoyed it.
Jimmy
Our Thanksgiving event was roughly 3 weeks after our Haunted House so that was a quick turn around, but we decided as a group to host a Thanksgiving event for younger kids where they could create hand turkeys, watch the charlie brown thanksgiving movie, eat popcorn, and they colored on Charlie Brown thanksgiving themed papers. Planning for this event was far less stressful than our first event considering our site had a lot of materials that we needed. They had the arts and crafts supplies that we used, and we used their printer to print out the thanksgiving Charlie Brown themed papers, and the popcorn, so it made planning for this event relatively easy. Our site supervisor's job was to find a group of kids for us to work with, and he was able to find a group of kids at Abbotts Creek Elementary School’s after school program the day before our event. At the event Bella, Colin (volunteer), and myself started to set up the event around 4:30 where we put out a foldable table and chairs for the kids, and made sure. Once the kids entered the room around 5 we had them come to the back of the room where we handed out two pieces of construction paper (for the hand turkey), and they got to pick a paper to color on. Then we went to the front of the class and introduced ourselves and started the process of creating the hand turkey. Rachel came a little after that but she had class until 4:15. I handed out scissors to the staff working at the event so we could ensure no kids cut themselves. For the most part during the hand turkey process I would walk around and make sure everyone was having a good time and on the same page. I went around with glue, feathers, and googly eyes so they could make their turkey pop. Once we started finishing up the hand turkeys, I started to hand out popcorn to the kids and staff, and Bella started to turn out the movie, and Rachel was assisting me with the popcorn and took some footage of our event. I think this event turned out very well, we started out with roughly 30-40 kids but that number dwindled down as more parents came to pick up their kids. The kids were great and we did not run into any problems, they were very respectful and fun to work with.
Rachel
I think I was even more excited about this event than our first one as I am such a big fan of the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, and I was excited to share those special memories I had as a kid watching this with the kids that would be participating in this program. I had a class that ended right before this program ended so I got there a little bit late, but it was so amazing to see how engaged all the kids were with their crafts and how excited they were for the movie. When we put the movie on I was a little nervous they would find it boring, but all of the kids seemed to really enjoy it and it was so much fun as a facilitator to walk around and connect with them while serving them popcorn and assisting with their crafts.
I learned a lot this semester about rolling with the punches and how to make decisions quickly without freaking out. I truly learned to rely on my group members (who once again have been so great all semester!) and we learned to work together to utilize our individual strengths. While program planning isn't necessarily the direction I want to take my future after I graduate in a little over two weeks, I think all of what I learned about being a strong facilitator and the skills I enhanced throughout the semester will easily be able to be transferred into whatever career path I choose to take.
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Our second program was less stressful in terms of last minute challenges and changes, but we still learned a fair bit from it. Our Thanksgiving program was geared towards kids, which provided a new opportunity for us, as none of us had worked with kids in the past. We also weren’t totally certain on what to expect as we didn’t know much about the group of kids we were hosting this for, like how old they would be or how many of them there would be. Thankfully though this program went off really well and we only had to deal with one kid crying, but he was crying because he didn’t want to leave, so we’re still counting that as a win. Unfortunately neither of our site supervisors were able to come to this program, so we had to really take the lead and work with the after school program workers to make sure everything went smoothly.