Emily's SMART Goal

My goal is to buy or have five more games/equipment donated to our Young Athletes Program by the end of the semester.

We have already started trying to achieve this goal. Since our last meeting, we’ve met with our contact at the Special Olympics and received two more pieces of equipment. Plus, she also said she has another toy for the kids to bring in. To get the other two pieces of equipment, we are going to talk to our community contact to see what the Special Olympics needs. To use our budget in a productive way, we will probably use it to buy equipment and things that the Special Olympics actually needs.

Shelby's SMART Goal

   My Smart Goal was concerning volunteers. We are going to try to better organize and coordinate our volunteers in order to have a one to one ratio of volunteers to kids as the program grows. We also hope to have at least 15 volunteers that are committed to coming each night by our next program.

   Luckily, we have fantastic volunteers already that are committed to making this program a success and are ready to go each night with much enthusiasm. However, with the anticipated growth of our program we will be in need of more great volunteers. To do this we will continue to spread the word around Drury. At the beginning of the year we gained many volunteers by sitting in the FSC during lunch hours. We will continue to do this in the future as well as send out University wide emails.

Pema's SMART Goal

I want to get 7 more students to participate in our program since we have ten volunteers and we need to match up to that number. I wish to do this before the start of our program next semester, that will be sometime in March. My plans are to visit schools specifically dealing with special needs children and talk to their parents personally. In the past, we have visited schools and talked to the teachers, but I feel the teachers aren’t putting much effort in it so we are taking the charge to get the word across directly. This is an important goal since our program is purely based on the children and if they don’t show up, our program is going to founder and achieving that number of children is very realistic.

Suzy's SMART Goal

My goal is to provide at least one more parking lot option for the parents bringing their kids to our event by our next program (December 1^st 2011).

        We realized that security would not open the parking lot right next to Weiser gym (a.k.a. the commuter lot). So instead we were hoping to find a destination for parents to park, and let them know ahead of time that they had a place to stay.

        After talking to security we found out that the only parking lot available for anyone to park in is lot 7. However, if parents’ cars have a handicap tag then they can park wherever they need to. Also everyone is allowed to park in the circle, without worry of a parking ticket, during the time of our program.

        We will inform the parents by adding this information to e-mails and flyers.

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love." - Mother Teresa

Our Special Olympics, young athletes program is doing well even

though we have had only 3 children participate so far. Our goal is to introduce special needs children to basic sports and see what they are good and bad at.  By doing this we get to know where they need to work more, so we help them improve in that field.

By the end of this semester, I wish to see a minimum of 5 children working with us. I want to see the improvements in them from the first day they came to the last day. Although I shouldn’t expect too much as we have planned to hold the program only 4 times this semester. I am hoping we can see a lot of great changes and a lot more children next semester, when we have a longer program. 

              -Pema

Participants Wanted!

Overall I feel like we have already begun to shape our plans out for the remaining DU YAP. It’s been kind of a bumpy start with making sure we had enough volunteers, and then trying to get kids to come out to Drury’s campus, but overall we are happy with the program itself. Our volunteers have been so patient with us trying to get everything organized. We really do appreciate their help, and their continued involvement with the YAP. What we really need to accomplish in the next few programs is the number of kids coming out to the program. Our first week we only had one little girl show up, Abby, and then yesterday we had two little kids show up. They were four years and their names were Robert and Kia. They say they plan on bringing as many kids as they can next week, and we look forward to seeing them again. Even so, we still hope to bring in more kids for the program. We plan on re-calling some of the special need organizations of Springfield, and continuing to visit the elementary schools. Nevertheless, no matter how many kids show up we are looking forward to next week’s YAP!

                -Suzy

Steadily Growing in Numbers

Overall, I feel as though my group has accomplished a lot so far this semester. We are half way done with our first Young Athletes Program. For our next two sessions, I hope that we can grow in numbers. By the end of week four, having eight to ten kids would really make me happy. It would be even better if they would promise to continue coming to our Young Athletes Program next semester as well. Also, I hope to get to know some more of the local elementary special education teachers. Knowing them would allow us to further grow our program and network with local teachers. Accomplishing all of this would make this program really worth it to me.

          -Emily

Learning and Growing Along the Way

We just had our second week of our Young Athletes Program and it was as enjoyable and wonderful as last week! I really am enjoying spending time and helping these children learn and grow. Not only that but I am also learning so much from this program and I enjoy seeing the children learn and grow. Throughout the remainder of the semester I hope to personally learn more about the children, learn more about what I can do to help them individually and grow more as a leader and team member. In regards to our project, I hope to a growth in the program. Currently, this program is new to the Springfield area so it has been a challenge locating different avenues to find children. We have seen growth since the program has began and I hope to see this increase as the program continues. Well, that’s all for this week. Au Revoir.

      -Shelby

Working with Joplin and Our First YAP

On the 24^th of October, Summit residents were asked to accompany the Drury Smart mob group to Joplin, to render help on the tornado wiped out site. I heard about the Extreme Home Makeover’s plan to build seven houses in seven days early in the semester, and got very excited and was eager to participate but didn’t know how. Fortunately Drury was forming a club called the Drury Design Build, headed by Tracy Sooter to design a tribute park for all the volunteers who helped in all sorts of ways after the destruction cause by the tornado.

So basically I was on site working on other things, when the smart mob team showed up on Monday. They ran toward the site and started laying down sods. The park, which had a large amount of bare ground was covered with the sods in less than an hour! What the smart mob did was very impressive and appreciated by all.  That concluded my stay in Joplin.

3^rd November, 2011

We had our first Special Olympics program last Thursday. I was happy with the number of volunteers who showed up to help us but was quite disappointed that only one child came. I thought it was going to be an unsuccessful first day but as the minutes started rolling with Aby, (that’s the child’s name) the feeling of disappointment quickly disappeared. Aby was co-operative and got along with all of us. Although she had trouble concentrating, she tried hard to listen to us and do as we asked her to. It was a wonderful experience that I know I wouldn’t forget in a long time. At the end of the program, we had a very happy and tired Aby. We are hoping we would get a few more children show up next time and for that, we are planning to personally go to some schools and talk to the children and their parents. That way, we can express the importance of our project and how much we want to help them. So I am quite certain things would be better next time.

                        -Pema Wangzome