For most freshmen at Banneker, community service is a new experience. A lot is up in the air for ninth graders right now, trying to get 270 total hours to graduate. Right now, most ninth graders aren’t having too many issues with their sites and commutes, even if their experiences are considered different from the majority of students.
Wilson Junius, a freshman, said he goes to his site on Tuesdays instead of Wednesdays. The majority of students go on Wednesdays.
His site is at New Bethel Baptist Church, which, as he explained, is only a block or so away from the Banneker building.
“I actually don’t know,” he said when asked why he goes to his site on Tuesdays. “I was just selected for that. I think it’s because the specific site I have, they can only do it on Tuesdays.”
Wilson explained that even though he attends community service on a different day than most, he can’t imagine his overall experience has been much different from that of other students.
Satya O’Malley, another freshman, goes to her middle school to help out with the aftercare program, Oyster Creative Activities.
“I mostly just help kids with their homework, it’s pretty easy.” She said how, at her site, she helps kids complete homework and find different activities for them to do after school.
Because she used to go to the site as a student when she went to Oyster Adams, Satya knows her site supervisor well: “I’ve known her for like 11 years and she’s the mom of one of my friends.”
Satya goes to her site for an extra hour every community service day because the program doesn’t end until 6 p.m., so she’ll probably get over the 270 hour requirement.
In her experience, her after school activities have not been an issue when it comes to working at the site. “Somehow, my sports are every day of the week except for Wednesdays, so that’s lucky. I also don’t go every day, so it doesn’t matter.”
When asked about how she felt about the site, Satya said “… it’s been fun. I get to overhear some interesting conversations, so that’s always lovely.”
Ms. Henderson is one of the freshman counselors, and said the most prominent issue for students is placement, specifically proximity and finding sites that are able to accept enough volunteers: “With this freshman class,” she explained, “it’s a large class; sometimes it’s a struggle, some sites only accept 10 kids, or five, so it’s hard to find places.”
Ms. Henderson said that for students who are simply unable to find a match, “I do this thing called ‘Letters of Love’ which is just an assignment, basically, of making creative cards for hospitalized kids or letters of love to the elderly.”
Ms. Henderson explained how it was very rare for students to need “Letters of Love,” but that there are currently two students participating in it. This is because “I assigned to a site, the site emails that they’re not available … then next week came and said, ‘Oh yeah, we don’t need them anymore, but this site does.’ So, it’s been back and forth, and they have not done hours…” The solution, so the students wouldn’t fail the advisory, was assigning them “Letters of Love.”
Though it’s inevitable for issues to come up with community service sites, Banneker’s counselors are doing their best to find a way for everyone to get the hours they need in a way that’s convenient for every student.
