I find it very, very easy to be true. I find myself alone when each day is through. Yes, I'll admit I'm a fool for you. Because you're mine, I walk the line

 Our first Summit class meeting for the new semester dealt with making connections with those who are seemingly different from ourselves. The key point that I took away from this discussion was that the differences that we see in others are minuscule compared to the things that we have in common. For instance, when we “walked across the line”, we could see that we all had many things in common. There were many differences that we had with one another but ultimately those things are not important or prevalent to how we are as a person. It is okay to have differences as long as we are able to understand the points of views of others and respect each individual despite our differences because in the end our similarities out way the differences.

This will be very beneficial and helpful in working with our community partner, the Special Olympics. We will be able to better relate to the individuals we will be working with. Making and maintaining relationships with others is extremely important in working with our community partner and is an important quality to posses in general. 

                   -Shelby

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine. I keep my eyes wide open all the time. I keep the ends out for the tie that binds. Because you're mine, I walk the line

From the Making Connections and Diversity presentation from our last class, I took away many things. Of all of our discussion points and activities we did, the biggest thing that I took away from it was really thinking about things from others’ perspective. This is something that I have always thought was very important. I felt like it was really reiterated in this presentation. The activity where we “walked across the line” was one that really highlighted this. It showed us the different things that others have experienced and how their view of the world is different because of this. Just because they don’t agree with you doesn’t mean that their reasoning is wrong. In their shoes, I might think the same way they do. This lesson will definitely help me with working with our community partner. We all have different schedules and different agendas. This also applies in working in my group. We all have different things that we need to accomplish during the day. Sometimes, we need to think about what is going on with the other members of the group and learn to be flexible. I thought this was a great presentation that will hopefully continue to help me and my group for the rest of the semester.  

                   -Emily

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