"When You Say a Situation Or a Person is Hopeless, You're Slamming the Door in the Face of God." ~Charles L. Allen

Quick update since the last one (I hope):

Fundraiser Dinner
The fundraiser dinner went pretty well, I thought!  And it was super nice to see so many people who support me there!  The room looked gorgeous, and there was a really cool collaborative piece of art work for everyone attending to participate in creating that will be hung in Pomona Hope somewhere.  I hope it goes in my office!  But the Volunteer Break Room might be better...

I also want to steal the video we showed to add to our volunteer trainings.  It was a pretty good overview of what we do, I thought.

And we got new pens!  I love them, despite them having orange accents.  It actually works on these.  (Let me know if you want a pen, we've got about a million.  Okay, really more like 500, but who's counting?)

It was nice, as a member of the Ministry Group at my church, who has helped put this event on several times now, to not have a ton of work to do to set everything up...  I did help out, but it seemed far less stressful for me this time, and it seems that the past few years the Board has really made sure that they were the ones doing most of the work.  I am so grateful to have such a hands-on Board to work for!  There was still stuff to do last minute (which is good... I don't like having nothing to do), but it didn't feel like it was the end of the world if it wasn't perfect.  Which is strange, because it seems like that's how it should feel once I actually start working for the organization...

The registration process looked very organized.  The food was DELICIOUS (my mom even liked her non-dairy versions of everything!).  The tables were named after major streets in Pomona!  Very cute!  It was all very elegant and well done, and everyone involved deserves chocolate.

And I got to dress like a grown-up!  I'm gonna need more reasons to wear that outfit.

Garden Knowledge Board Game
The Garden Knowledge Board game got tested for the first time this week!  The kids were at snack and we let the older group try it.  They really struggled to answer some of the questions I thought would be easy, but hopefully they will rise to the challenge instead of just giving up.  They did say they liked it, but I'm not sure how much of that is that they didn't want to hurt my feelings.

Champions
Our Champions had a rough week.  Monday there was an incident where several of our students and one high school volunteer were acting very suspicious when some of our incentives for the 2-minute math tests went missing.  That, combined with the fact that almost every single one of our junior high students (even the good ones!) left something out to be picked up by staff, caused me to start the entire group off with one warning as soon as they got there on Tuesday.  I had to give the entire group a lecture about respect the place and losing our trust and I had to ask the high school volunteer to leave and not come back until after Thanksgiving, but I let him know we wanted him there, but we also wanted him to take his role as a leader seriously.   And by the end of the day, I also had to ask his friend (two peas in a pod) to leave and not return until after Thanksgiving (same general speech).  I don't like having to come down so hard on the kids, but some of them have been getting away with stuff for too long already, and they seemingly took advantage of the fact that Jeff was on jury duty all week.  I just really hope that the two boys do want to come back and do better when they return.  I'd much rather have them here than out on the streets all afternoon.  Especially with the rise in violent crime around town lately.

Cancelled Day
As harsh as it sounds, the kids who got kicked out really only missed one day.  We cancelled the program on Thursday for because of a whole bunch of reasons, the combination of which meant we would have too few volunteers, too many kids with no homework, nowhere to send the kids during garden workshop, and too few rooms by the end of the day, with just me setting everything up and making sure everything worked out.  Instead, I used the time to plan our Advent calendar, starting next week, let volunteers know about the week off (for everyone but staff!), and continue planning the Math Adventure Journal!  (I have to make it sound cool!)

We've started figuring out our Christmas party (thankfully, Emily is organizing that!) and we're going to be opening an hour early for the kids who are getting out of school early for the next 2 weeks!  We may have been crazy when we decided this.  But, on the bright side, it means the kids actually have time for their Advent calendar and associated activities!

Week Off?
It's Thanksgiving week and our kids get the week off of school, which means they also get the week off from us.  But that doesn't mean WE get the week off!  Nope!  This week is fundraising week.  Everybody's favorite!  But in all seriousness, we do need to do it, and we've been so busy with actually running the program that we haven't had a chance to.  I don't know about Jeff, but almost every one of my regularly scheduled weekly fundraising sessions has been postponed due to some kind of emergency that I had to deal with (getting kids picked up, people showing up, etc.).  So it's good we have this time.  Only to be interrupted by our delivery of Thanksgiving Baskets to our kids tomorrow (anyone want to help?), writing a letter of recommendation for a REALLY AMAZING volunteer who wants to go into teaching, and the random phone calls I've been getting all morning.  And maybe cleaning my desk.  (It really needs it.)

Thanksgiving
I just want to be sure everyone knows how truly thankful I am to be working in this job.  To be supported by wonderful people like you.  To be there for our kids (even when they're driving me crazy... because it is so rare).  To work with amazing volunteers and colleagues, and to work for such an awesome Board.  I have a lot to be thankful for, and I hope you do too!