Post 2

My experience volunteering at APEX Youth Center so far hasn’t exactly been what I was expecting. I’ve had some trouble finding times to volunteer with the kids.  They only come to the center after school, and I have class during almost all of those times. It was disappointing to realize I couldn’t interact with the kids, and I’m in the process of trying to switch times with another volunteer.  Meanwhile, I’ve been coming to the center before the kids arrive to help with office work. Since I’m not actually interacting with the kids yet, it’s hard to feel like I’m accomplishing anything, but I have to remind myself that doing office work is still a form of helping.

I’ve been entering data into the computer the last few weeks at APEX.  I sit at a desk, going through pages and pages of sign in sheets.  I plug in the number of girls and boys that came each day, as well as their ages.  Our cluster convo the other day got me thinking on the topic of language.  I haven’t come in contact with the kids’ language yet, but I do read their names.  I had to continuously ask the volunteer head if the kids’ names belonged to girls or boys.  Often, she had to correct my pronunciation of their names, and then I would correct myself.  It was a little embarrassing to keep saying the names wrong.    I hadn’t seen or heard the majority of these names before, and it was a learning experience to add them into my vocabulary.

Despite the fact that I enter and exit the center before it gets dark out, I still don’t feel completely confortable on the drive there and when I get in and out of my car.  It’s become a habit to lock my car as soon as I turn off Claiborne and into the neighborhood surrounding APEX. It makes sense that the center itself has passcode locks on all of its doors.  I have to knock on the door every time I come for someone to let me in.  The signs outside the door and when you walk in give warnings like: NO WEAPONS and NO DRUGS. It’s not a warm atmosphere, despite the fact that its purpose is to be a safe haven for the kids from the violent world outside of it.  It has an almost clinical feel to it. As I sat at the computer this week, I kept getting déjà vu; it smelled a lot like a hospital or doctor’s office.

I was originally planning to focus my attention on the violence in and around the center, but because I haven’t had a chance to really be there with the kids yet, I don’t have much more insight on this issue.  All I can say is that the neighborhood is definitely not safe and that most of these kids live in a threatening environment.  The volunteer head has talked to me a little about their upbringings, but besides that, I don’t really know what they’re dealing with.  Personally, I’ve felt a little uncomfortable when leaving the shelter.  The teenagers waiting for the door to open were not happy or friendly.  One glared at me when I left.  From the poetry we read for the cluster convos, I can see where the hostility is coming from. 

Truthfully, I’ve become more confused about where to focus my service learning and how to relate it to Shakespeare. But, in the following months, I hope to figure this out.