Community Project Spring 2011

Intermediate Level ESL ClassReagan High School, Austin, TX

Stephanie Jones

Brainstorming

• What is a problem in your neighborhood or community?

• What can you do to help?

Outcome

• Neighborhood watch• Volunteer in schools• Install lights on neighborhood streets• Neighborhood clean-up• Make a dance club• Collect items for people in Haiti

Planning Stages

• Voted to see which project they wanted to do, they could also vote not to do a project

• Selected Project was the donation of items to Haiti• Discussion of gathering information– What items could be gathered– Where we could send them or take them to be donated– Who would we collect the items from?

• Other classes• Other schools

Planning Stages Cont.

• Promotion– Flyers– Contacting other classes in person

• Final Project– Video– Posters– Pamphlet– Charts

American Red Cross

• Found phone number and web site for ARC• Created and practiced telephone dialogue in

class – Introduce self– State project– What needs to be collected?– Where can we bring the items?

• Asked for volunteers to call and look up information on the web

Collection Planning

• Flyers – What – Where– When

• Deadline – Spring Break

First Snag

• ARC only collected money, the cost of sending items outweighed the cost of buying them in Haiti

• No problem... New project was to have a garage sale. Collected items would be used and the money we made would be donated

More Discussion!!!

• Where?– Created and practiced dialogue for contacting

organizations that could help us• When?– We had to push the date back after Spring Break; we

aimed for April 5, but were willing to be flexible• Who are we including?• Just the garage sale?– Car wash – Bake sale

Moving Forward

• Found a small church that was willing to help us (One of my students attends)

• They approved our using their water for the car wash

• Would provide tables • Advertised in their bulletin for the garage sale and

item collection• Moved the date to April 16• Assigned roles and responsibilities

Advertising

Second Snag A Few Damaging Assumptions

• Church contact had assumed we were the Church of Haiti, and that multiple congregation members were helping

• My student who was the only church member involved, assumed that the other Haitian members of her church would be involved

• I asserted that it was an ESL class project

No problem...?

• Another church was asked• No new location could be found• Class decided to cancel the project

Reflections

• Should I have led the project? • Things don’t always work out the way you

want them to…