Entry 10

Weekly Project Journal

1. Description. What happened in your project this week? What did you do? Experience?

I started this week on Monday where I worked at childcare as usual and got my first experience at the food shelf.
This week at the child care services we got a new student, a girl from Mexico. I met her and I worked with her using flash cards that had Spanish words that correlated with pictures and I had her repeat and remember the English words that I said to these flash cards. She did well and I figure she learned probably 50 English words by the end of the session. After that I went to the food shelf where I worked with a man bagging Jasmine rice and putting it on the shelf and stocking the shelves with corn, beans, boo berry cereal, and various nutritious drinks. As I stocked the shelves I also watched people come in and take some of the foods we had stocked for their families.
This week marked my first experience at the food shelf and I finally got to experience and learn about how hunger affects immigrants in St. Paul.

2. Interpretation. What did you learn from your project this week? About the project? About the issue? About yourself?

This week I became more directly aware of hunger in the Twin Cities and thus saw immigrant marginalization from a new angle. In addition I learned that while there is a definite need for food in the Twin Cities, neighborhood house does a very good job of supplying it. They work with second harvest to make these food supplies possible and often the food is really first rate. It was so specified to individual culture's tastes that they even carried tamarind paste for Thai and Indian groups. I was overjoyed to get a wider view of the issue. I realized that I am capable of doing a fairly good job of running things at the food shelf and that I can also teach English fairly well.

3. Evaluation. How would you evaluate your work on the project this week? What grade would you give yourself? Are you accomplishing the objectives of the project? Your personal objectives?

I would evaluate my work as an A. I expanded my knowledge of the problem and added several hours of valuable experience doing so. I am accomplishing the objectives of the project and even expanding them by getting a very wide view of immigrant marginalization. My personal objectives are also being met as I am able to make peoples' lives better by giving a helping hand.