Sam and David Blog from May 22-25

So it turns out we missed quite a few blog posts, so here is one extra long one for the past week:

On the night of last Sunday, we pulled into Sara's grandmother's home in Charleston, SC. During our planning stage, our agenda in Charleston was more organized and planned than any other city on our trip, so we were able to get to work early in the morning. David and I set out from Mrs. Huser's house at about 8 or 8:30 in the morning to head to the Sea Island Habitat for Humanity ReStore (Sea Island Habitat is the branch of Habitat for Humanity on John's Island, slightly south of Charleston. Charleston has its own branch but they weren't very cooperative). The ReStore in Charleston was much more impressive than Savannah's ReStore - it had a lot of different rooms with different genres of items, a large warehouse of larger things, and then a whole outdoor section full of delightful treasures that would make wonderful additions/replacements in homes. It was boiling hot on this day, but we still managed to get more than our share of excellent footage.
The following day, David and I got up really early in order to get to Sea Island Habitat's build site in some tiny development. We were the first volunteers there, so we walked down the street to look at the houses. It turns out that of the 12 or so houses that were on the street, 3-4 were finished and inhabited, the rest of which were being built by our favorite organization. After introducing ourselves to the people in charge (we learned that two of them were from Ohio, and one went to school at Kenston), two white vans full of volunteers from a local church organization arrived and everyone piled out. We got into a little circle/crowd and the man in charge started to talk to us about what we were going to do, what we should be aware of, safety, etc. Everybody then prayed because Sea Island Habitat is apparently a Christian organization. David is devoutly Buddhist so he didn't pray. After that, people got assigned to tasks. David and I volunteered to go with the guy from Kenston. The three of us mixed cement in a giant rusty, clanky machine using shovels and brute strength. We then spent hours tediously putting down part of the cement and cinder block foundation for the house. It was incredibly hot and humid and the sun was directly overhead, but we managed. It was interesting to see how the foundation of houses were actually made, but it was a pain to line everything up using levels and tape measures, then make markings, move everything, lay down cement, put everything back, try to line it up with the markings then use levels and tape measures to make everything straight and even, and then repeating the process for the next cinder block. It was hot.
After that, we went home and took showers to get all of the dirt off of us, and then we relaxed for the rest of the night. The next day we left from Charleston and got home by nightfall. Since then we have been working on our presentation/documentary.

The end.

Taylor - Blog #12

The rest of this week was pretty busy because of some upcoming events. Part of the time, I worked on compiling the information about approved photographers (Natalie, the Manager of Images and Photographer Relations, has to approve a photographer who would like to volunteer at a shoot by browsing through the photographers personal website and portfolio) for every chapter. By creating a Word document of approved photographers for every chapter, the chapter directors can easily keep track of available photographers for upcoming photo shoots, and can have photographers’ information readily available in case of a late cancellation. It was interesting to browse the approved photographers’ websites to find information because I got to see and learn what qualifies a photographer as approved or capable of photographing at a Flashes of Hope photo shoot.

I also worked a little bit with Kick-It to help organize the upcoming Chagrin Kick-It event on June 10. The Chagrin Kick-It events are typically the biggest out of all the events, so it requires a lot of preparation. So, I was in charge of organizing and compiling all of the supplies needed for the events, such as t-shirts, signs, raffle tickets, kickballs, donation boxes, bases, wristbands, buttons, etc. This took awhile considering the quantities of all the supplies needed were huge and the t-shirt folding was painfully time-consuming.

On Thursday, when Ms. Gray came to visit, I learned from Allison that they would like me to work as a paid intern with Flashes and Kick-It during the summer, which was pretty exciting news. That afternoon, Natalie, Hannah, Jessica and I went to Yogurt Vi since it was Jessica’s last day working with Flashes of Hope/Kick-It for her senior project.

Taylor - Blog #11

Tuesday was actually a pretty exciting day because of some surprising news that Flashes of Hope received. In the middle of the day, Allison got a call from an ABC representative who explained an upcoming ABC reality television show called “Everyday Health Heroes.” Started by the producers of “The Biggest Loser,” Everyday Health Heroes is a show around people “who are making a difference in the world of health throughout their community.” After hearing about Flashes’s work, ABC called Allison to discuss the possibility of focusing the new show around Flashes of Hope. Obviously, this would be a huge breakthrough for Flashes. In 2007, People Magazine did a long article on Flashes of Hope, which led to the donation of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the organization from people who read about the organization in People, and were touched by its work. However, since then, Flashes has not been hugely publicized, which means less and less donations have been made in the past years. So, if ABC were to choose Flashes for their show, more and more people would be educated about Flashes and its work in the health community, which would consequently bring in more donations once again.

Hypothetically, ABC would attend and magnify a number of Flashes of Hope photo shoots around the country. For example, if a patient being photographed dreamed of being a Nascar driver, Jeff Gordon would suddenly appear at the photo shoot to surprise the patient. Also, many of the girl patients talk about how they learned how to pose for the camera from Tyra Banks and her show, America’s Next Top Model. So, hopefully, because of her relationship with ABC, Tyra would also appear at some photo shoots to instruct and pose with the patients who are being photographed.

So, on Tuesday, we basically brainstormed these preliminary ideas for the show for Allison to share with the producers during her Skype conference with them on Monday. Hopefully ABC will decide to focus their new reality show on Flashes and share the incredible impact that this organization has on the lives of these pediatric cancer patients.

Kyle- Week 4

The last few days have been a little slow, but enjoyable, nonetheless. I have been working on sending out more emails to the Class of 2012 outside of the state of Ohio. I am essentially seeing kids that are qualified to play football for case and sending them out introductory letters on what to do from here. Essentially, they must then send in highlight videos of themselves which me and the other coaches have been watching and, also, fill out a questionaire. I have also been helping prepare for the recruiting camp tomorrow. We have started setting up but I will be at Case at 8 o clock tomorrow to continue. Tomorrow should be the most interesting day of my project, thus far. I get to see the recruits in action and maybe even play a little myself.

Taylor - Blog #10

On Monday, Jessica and I finished the video about Quinn that we are submitting in the Invacare Real Life video contest. We uploaded the video to YouTube, submitted it to the Invacare Real Life YouTube channel, and then began to work on spreading the news about our video. In order to advance to the second stage of the competition, our video must be one of the top 15 videos with the most YouTube views. The 15 with the most views are then watched, analyzed, and judged by a panel of judges, who then decide which three videos will receive the grand prize. We sent emails to a ton of people, sent the link to all of the Chapter Directors, and did everything possible to get people to watch our video. By the end of the day on Monday, we were close to 200 or 300 views, which was awesome. Now, we are close to 1,500. So, it would be great if you guys (whomever actually reads the blogs) would watch the video. In order for your view to count, you have to watch the entire video, start to finish. It’s only 5 minutes though, so it’s not too long. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_zWUAiHyJc

Thank you!

Week Three of My Project (Xiaoran)

Week three is an important period of time of my project because I have to decide what kind of computer I want and choose the proper components on the market after comparing the prices. Originally, I thought it would be an easy week. However, it turned to be the hardest one. One thing that really struck me was that the compatibility of different components. As a matter of fact, everything I chose has to be compatible with other things. I didn't pay lots of attention to the compatibility in the beginning, so I have to give up many parts I found because they are not going to function together. Since there were only two weeks left, I can't wait for the shipping from online store so I looked up the components I want on internet and bought them at the local store. I have no previous experience about making a computer, therefore, read some online articles and watches couples video that are related to the process of making a computer. In order to make a computer, the first thing is to choose the three most important parts in a computer which are CPU, motherboard, and graphic card. Expecially the motherboard, which combines every other parts together, has to have a great compatibility in term of its advanced Expansion Slots, memory type support, and Panel Ports. As soon as I decided what motherboard, CPU and graphic card, the rest of the components came to me much easier. Nevertheless, I still need to compare the price and find and best deal that is available on the market. On weekend, I went to the MicroCenter and spend $700+ purchasing everything I need. I am ready to start the work of making a desktop and that is what I will do in week four.

Kyle- Project Start of Week Four

To be honest, I've been doing a lot of the same stuff this past week. I have changed the whole ranking system because, before, it was too broad. I have now added 5 levels to each player's ranking. After they are ranked based on their skill level, they must then be ranked on test scores and GPA. I then went back in the computer and changed all those rankings. I have also been doing some more mailings. I have also continued to do film work, organizing plays by the defense it's being run against. Finally, I have helped them prepare and plan the recruiting camp coming up this Friday. I will be there all morning on friday helping out with registration and other things of that sort. I am really excited to get a chance to see recruiting live and in action.

Week 3

The first day of the third week we began with emptying old binders and putting the ones that were needed into boxes. We also organized bins of materials and cleaned up the office. Monday was pretty boring but the next day i was able to go to a meeting at yours truly for the Greek Step show that takes place during the Cleveland Classic weekend. I got free breakfast and got to participate in the meeting. We talked about the budget, marketing, potential Dj's and MC's, potential fraternities and sorority step teams, and the process of the event. The next day at the office we continued to pack things together and also write up the meeting notes and look up potential judges for the step show. I made a list well known local clevelanders that were also apart of one of the NPHC members. During this week another intern showed up so now there were three of us and the jobs were becoming more easy. The rest of the week we packed and i also sent out emails to all of the Student life coordinators of several colleges giving them information about the cleveland classic and if they were interested.

Week 2

The second week of my project i continued to work on the Clevleand Classic. North Carolina Central University needed bus transportation so one of the days of the week it was my job to call mulitple charter bus companies and recieve quotes and at times bargain with them to get lower prices. Another day at the sports commission I atttended the staff meeting with all of the members of the sports commission and got to introduce myself and listen on all of the upcoming events, marketing strategies, and much more. The same day I also helped with mailing colleges for the College Readiness Fair and continued to call more bus companies. Because the sports commission is changing offices we had to assist in much of the packing. In addition to that while we were packing I would at times have to go back to my desk and either email someone or make a excell spreadsheet for the cleveland classic or call fraternities and sororities about group sales. But for the majority of the week we assisted in organizing things together for the office and preparing for the move.

Project- Week 4 Tommy

The end of last week was by far my favorite and awesome to say the least! I was able to interact the most with the students. The sixth graders did the actual economics project and I enjoyed watching the once work in progress turn out to be a success. Each group was able to sell their item (with fake money of course) within two sessions. At the end of the session, the classes came together and reflected on the day, coming up with better strategies to increase the profits made. During this period, I was in Mr. Cramer's class and I was able to hold my first class discussion. Halfway as a joke on me and the other because it was very beneficial. Mr. Cramer gave me his most rowdy class. I learned a lot from this incident in many ways, most especially how to control a productive classroom. Another favorite part of the economics project was the food I was able to eat and hearing all the students scream out, "Mr. Betsa, over here, try this." I really enjoyed this whole entire experience and felt not only was it a great thing for the students, but also for me. I was also able to assist in teaching Mrs. Zampini's seventh grade honors math class. They were going over "Solving for Y". It was difficult at first to find what level of understanding they were at. As soon as I was able to do that, I found ways to steadily increase their understanding. My favorite part was when I put a tricky question on the board and they all moaned at first. But as I went over it with them slowly and made them figure it out, they all were enthusiastic and felt achievement.

Taylor - Blog #9

On Friday, I worked with Jessica on a video that we are entering in a contest. Invacare, the leading producer/seller of medical products (most notably, wheelchairs), is holding a video contest called “The Invacare Real Life.” According to Invacare’s website, “The Invacare Real Life is a forum to tell your stories and what it means to you or someone you know to live with a disability, an ailment or advancing age.” The top three videos will be chosen based on the number of YouTube views, creativity, and inspiration. The creator of a winning video will receive $3,000, and will also get $6,000 donated to a charity of their choice. So, Jessica and I are creating a video about Quinn (Allison’s son) and his life story.

When Quinn was 2, he was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor. Two days after his diagnosis, he underwent surgery followed by a year of chemotherapy and radiation. A few years later, Quinn was healthy and considered “cured” from cancer. However, at age 9, Quinn was diagnosed with a different, even more rare type of cancerous tumor – so rare that Quinn is only 1 of 100 people in the world to ever have this type of tumor. Quinn decided that he wanted to discover a way to find a cure to this terrible disease through the game of kickball. He held the first “Kick-It” event in Chagrin Falls to support him and his best friend, Ava, who was also undergoing treatment. Over 500 people attended and played in the event, which ultimately raised thousands of dollars for pediatric cancer research. After months of chemo and radiation, he underwent another surgery to remove the tumor located in his pelvis, and consequently had his entire left hip removed as well. However, this obstacle did not stop Quinn from continuing his growing Kick-It fundraising efforts. Kick-It games now take place all over the country, and have raised a couple hundred thousand dollars for the Children’s Oncology Group, the world’s largest children’s cancer research group in the world. Now, at age 11, Quinn is taking an experimental medication that doctors hope will continue to keep him cancer free. Besides his distinct limp from the removal of his left hip, Quinn acts like and feels like a normal kid who can rock climb, play (some) sports, horseback ride, and participate in other physical activities.

In the afternoon on Friday, Allison, Quinn, Cathy (one of the two the Kick-It directors), Jessica and I went to the US middle school to attend their Kick-It pep rally. At the rally, Quinn shared his story with the students and teachers and spoke about determination and perseverance, noticeably inspiring others. Allison and Cathy followed Quinn and talked about various logistics and details about US’s upcoming Kick-It event on June 7^th. All of the kids and teachers were extremely excited for Kick-It after the pep rally, and were all inspired to help find a cure for cancer and for Quinn.

Sam and David Catch-up blog

I am terrible at remembering to blog, and DAVID IS GOOD FOR NOTHING, so here are four blogs rolled into one.

New Orleans:
Sunday/Monday
On Sunday night, David and I were generously invited to a dinner for Habitat for Humanity. The dinner was basically a welcome dinner, since all of the attendees were Sigma Chi fraternity members from various colleges around the US/Canada. This branch of Habitat is part of the Brees Dream Foundation, which NFL Saints Quarterback Drew Brees and his wife founded. Drew was a member of Sigma Chi and Purdue University, so every year he brings in groups of Sigma Chi guys from their respective colleges to come work for Habitat in New Orleans. David and I were the only people at the dinner who were younger than 20 and didn't wear polos with spiked hair and big muscles.
Monday morning, David and I woke up bright and early at 6:00 and headed to downtown New Orleans to the hotel where all the fraternity guys were staying to catch the 7:30 buses that took all of us down to the build site. Once we unloaded off of the buses, we all circled up and some cool guy with a beard and a tool belt talked to us about safety and Habitat for Humanity. David and I immediately got down to business setting up one of the houses (un-boarding the windows, etc.). One of the experienced Habitat employees taught David and me the proper way to paint walls/ceilings with paint rollers (I already knew, but David has never worked a day in his life) and we started painting. We painted literally from 8:30 - 3:00, with coats of primer and paint. The Habitat day officially ends at 4:00, but David and I befriended a photographer named Carlos at Sunday's dinner, and Carlos offered to drive us around the ninth ward and other parts of New Orleans that were devastated by Katrina. We saw new housing projects, failed housing projects, old housing projects, and soon-to-be housing projects. It was superb. We got back home at around 5:30, so it was a long day for us.

Tuesday
On Tuesday, David and I woke up at 6:00 again, got on the buses at 7:30 and worked on finishing up our painting project from the previous day. David and I had to leave at 11:00 in order to start driving from New Orleans to Savannah, which takes ten hours with no stops. We didn't manage to finish painting the last coat on the inside of the house. I think all we had left was the kitchen, but some of the other guys probably finished for us. The Sigma Chi frat guys did a small amount of standing around, which made the two of us feel like we were diligent workers. However they were working outside in the hot sun while the two of us painted inside. We made a friend named Drew Lambert who goes to Ball State in Indiana. He invited us to stay at his frat.
We then were in the car for 10.5 hours on the long drive to Georgia. We got in to the house in Savannah at 11:00pm with the time difference.

Wednesday
David and I didn't have anything planned on Wednesday, and we decided to use it as more of a transition/rest day because we anticipated that we would be working on Saturday, which I will explain later

For the rest of our stay in Savannah, David and I are/have been making trips to the Habitat ReStore. Habitat for Humanity doesn't start building houses in Savannah until early June, so the two of us used this as an opportunity to work at the ReStore, which is essentially a large warehouse/store of donated construction materials, appliances, furniture, electronics, etc. that people can come buy for discounted prices in order to refurbish their homes. Today in addition to working at the warehouse, we interviewed Charles Austin, the manager of Savannah's ReStore, and got about a good amount of really solid video footage about Habitat's contributions to Savannah and his involvement in the effort.

Tomorrow we will be working on project regardless of it being the weekend. We will stop by the ReStore early in the morning to work for a little while, then say goodbye to the wonderful staff and volunteers we've worked with over the past few days. Afterwards at 1:00, we will head off to our next wonderful opportunity: Charles Austin graciously invited the two of us to a housing dedication ceremony nearby. This ceremony is to formally announce and celebrate the decision to build four houses for four selected families in Savannah. David and I are very lucky to have been given this invitation, and we hope to get some wonderful footage of speeches about Habitat, and the sheer goodness that Habitat for Humanity is doing for struggling families and housing in the Eastern United States.

Hope everyone's project is going well.

Sun's Blog - Week 3

On Wednesday, Jodi and I planned to go to Cleveland Museum of Art to see Japanese & Korean art exhibition. I really like visiting CMA because not only it's free for the entrance, but also you learn cultural differences through art. The exhibition was interesting for me because I had very little interactions with Japanese arts. It was a good experience to both compare and contrast Korean and Japanese art. I have to say that there's not that much of a difference between those two arts, except the appearance of humans. After looking around the exhibition, we went to watch the mezo-soprano recital that was also held in CMA. Honestly, I didn't like the recital compared to the students' recitals at Oberlin. Jodi didn't like it either so we decided to leave in the intermission.

Yesterday I got a day off.

Today, I downloaded the photos of the concert that we had on sunday, then I helped Jodi out with winding yarns on the shuttles. Jodi has stacks and stacks of yarns in her room and her cat, Ming, loves to play with yarns... She scratched me once and since I'm alergic to cats, the spot was swollen a lot. It was terrible. Anyway, I got to learn how to weave with Jodi! She let me do some of the weave. It was really hard! I think that in order to weave, you need to have a lotof patience.

Week Two of My Project (Xiaoran)

In the beginning of week two, my sponsor gave me a book called A+ Guide to Hardware which is a professional computer book for technician examination. My main task for this week is to read this book and acquire more specific knowledge about computer hardware. Compare to the information that I read in week one, the content in this book provides more detail of each component. Every day I will spend couple hours to read that book and collected the question that I didn't understand. By reading this book, I noticed that there are actually many tricks involved in assembling a desktop because different people need different computer. So, when we try to make our own computer, depending on what we need, we have to decide what components will be in the best value and serve us best. The most important component will give us direction to choose the peripheral and the secondary chips. Since I need a desktop mainly for entertainment and games, I have to be more discreet when I pick the GPU (graphics processing unit) because that is the chip deals with graphic calculations. However, other parts should not be too old otherwise they cannot cooperate with the high-standard GPU properly and will limit the GPU's performance.

On the weekend, I met with my sponsor and we talked non-stop for 6 hours which gave him enough time to answer all the questions that I had. We together disassembled the desktop into parts and he explained the explicitly the functions, the roles, and the things I have to pay more attention for every parts. It was a fun experience for me because I get to know what I want to learn and we shared lots of personal stories of our own that are relative to computer.

Taylor - Blog #8

Today, I attended my first photo shoot, which was at Akron Children’s Hospital. Jessica and I met Jen Greulich, the Chapter Co-Director, a volunteer whose name I can’t remember (oops), and the photographer, Dr. LeRoy Dierker at the hospital at 9:30 this morning. The photo shoot took place in one of the small family waiting areas in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders. Jen told us that 5 patients had signed up to be photographed, however, the numbers always end up changing due to how the patients are feeling the day of the shoot. Since there were only a few patients signed up, the child life specialist for the Akron chapter, who was also present at the shoot, went around the clinic and visited patients to inform them that Flashes services were available. After she did this, more and more patients and their families came to get photographed. Luckily, all of the parents/guardians of the photographed patients gave me permission to take some behind-the-scenes photographs of the photo shoot and their children.

For the most part, the patients that were photographed seemed happy and excited to participate. There were two patients that were unable to leave their room for various reasons, so the photographer, Jen, Jessica and I accommodated these patients, and photographed them in their hospital rooms. One of those two patients, a 2-year old named Payton, was in an isolated zone room, which is a room that is carefully sterilized for patients who are undergoing intense chemotherapy and consequently have an extremely weak immune system, so are subject to outside germs. So, when we visited Payton’s room, we had to wear special gowns, gloves, and masks to ensure that none of our germs would come in contact with Payton and her room. Of all the patients, Payton was probably the hardest to watch. The pain that she was in was very obvious, for she couldn’t get off of her couch or even smile or laugh without using a expending a lot of her energy.

Two of the nine patients photographed today were located in the Neonatal Intensive Care (NIC) department. Jessica and I were not allowed to go into the rooms of these patients, so we stayed with Jen while they were photographed. Jen explained that the patients located in the NIC were newborn babies with cancer who were extremely close, even days away, from dying. So, understandably, the parents were not as comfortable with the presence of outsiders like Jessica and me.

While the current situations of Payton and the two babies in the intensive care unit were very hard to see/hear, many of the other patients who were photographed today were noticeably courageous and extremely inspiring. For example, one of the patients was a 13-year old girl named Ashlee (in the photo). Ashlee, accompanied by her father, walked into the waiting room/photo shoot dragging her I.V. stand behind her. She enthusiastically said hi to everyone in the room and immediately cracked a joke about the fact that she had more hair (barely) than her bald father. When asked if she wanted to put on any makeup by one of the stylists, she responded, “Nope, I already look beautiful!” and laughed. Throughout her entire photo shoot, she continually changed poses, sometimes wearing her black fedora hat, while other times proudly showing off her practically bald head, laughing and smiling the entire time.

Week One of My Project (Xiaoran)

I thought I only need to post when the project reaches its mid-point. That is why I haven't posted anything yet. Anyway, I am going to summarize the things I did and what I learned in the first week. In the beginning of my project, a very surprising thing happened which is that my sponsor told me he can only meet me during the weekend. As a result, my original project became a self-studying project. In order to be ready for our first meeting, I need to have some basic knowledge about computer and how is is made so I read lots of information that is related to computer hardwares. Other than the couples links my sponsor sent to me, I also found some resources that contains many very useful articles and I read all of them. By reading those articles, I learned all the components and parts of a computer and their roles in a computer. After a period of reading, I tried to open the case of the desktop and explore what is inside. However, all I can do is to open the side cap which allowed to see the interior structure and how different parts are connected. It is really complex when you first see the inside, but in fact there are only couple big components. As long as you can recognize them, the whole structure will become much clear to you.

I felt the first week was kind of boring, however, I did learn something about computer that will definitely serve me in the future.

Sun's Blog - Week 3

So yesterday and today, I didn't have much things to do since we are done with the house concert successfully on sunday. Jodi wanted me to do another project with her which is the weaving project. I don't actually get to weave, but I helped her out with untying yarns. Her weaving exhibition starts in May 28th. There will be music and lots of food! Jodi was really busy writing grant proposals for M.U.S.i.C. and so I didn't have much things to do. The cool thing I did today was writing a thank you note for people who donated for this concert. I've never written a thank you note before (Korean's don't write thank you cards...), so this was actually a fun thing for me to do. Jodi was surprised that I've never written a thank you card. I was kind of embarrassed but now I learned how to write a thank you card... haha I also worked with Publisher because Jodi wanted me to print out more cards. I had intereting experience today...

David and Sam

We arrived in New Orleans at about 12:30 this afternoon. As usual when arriving at a host's house, a good amount of time is spent talking, going over logistics, and getting settled. However, David and I did get a chance to go down to Woodmere, which is the area of New Orleans with the highest foreclosure rate. We managed to get a couple minutes of medium-quality footage, but it was the best we could find.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day - We start working with Habitat for Humanity at 7:30am in the morning until about 4:00pm. Afterward, our new friend Carlos, who is a family photographer for our hosts, generously offered to take David and me around certain parts of New Orleans to get footage as directed by an expert photographer. It should be great.

Sam

Kyle- Project Start of Week Three

Today was an interesting day. This past saturday Case had their camp for some of the prospective recruits. This gave them a good idea of the kids they want to recruit. Today, the day was spent talking about the camp and who they thought did a good job at it. Then, I helped send out emails to kids who they were impressed with and wanted to start to recruit heavily. Other than that, I sent a few more letters out to kids who they are just starting to recruit and called it a day.

Taylor - Blog #7

Today, the other senior, Jessica, and I went with Allison to meet with a woman named Mary Ann Cramer, the Executive Director of Teen Leadership Corps (TLC). TLC is a non-profit organization that, through an academic course with a specific curriculum, encourages teenagers to engage in and lead service opportunities within their schools and their communities. TLC’s course is present in 13 different schools and is affiliated with 4 others. Mrs. Cramer contacted Allison and Cathy, the Kick-It Director, in hopes of incorporating Kick-It into the service-based curriculum in some way. So, Mrs. Cramer is hoping to hold a conference at the Q for students and teachers from the schools that are currently participating in the TLC conference and for those who are interested in participating in the future. Mrs. Cramer is hoping to bring in multiple teen leaders who have either started their own organization, have overcome a hardship, or impacted their community in some way as guest speakers, and asked Allison if Quinn, her son, would be one of the key speakers. Allison, of course, said that Quinn would love to share his story and speak about Kick-It (which he founded). After the meeting, we went back to the office and I continued working on the spreadsheet of major donors (“Big Shots”) and their contact information for the rest of the afternoon.

Project- Week 3 Tommy

Last Friday, I completed the day without my sponsor, Mr. Stenger, present. He had to attend a teacher's seminar as the head of the English department so I shadowed many different teachers. I was able to shadow a total of four teachers from each grade. I began the day with Mr. Hagan's sixth grade Social Studies class. He had me do some tedious work; grading map tests from two of his classes. From the final scores between two classes, it was obvious the different abilities from each class. I have heard many times and even witnessed the concept of adaptability alive in the career of a teacher. As a teacher, you must be comfortable with the way you teach but most especially able to adapt or change your plans in order to suit best the education of the class. The next class I went into was Mr. Archual's seventh grade World History class. This environment was very unique in that Mr. Archual kept his class going. Out of all the classes I have been in, I have never laughed as much I did in this classroom. He is a very humorous guy and yet is able to educate the students well. The class was reviewing for their Chapter 19 Renaissance test. Mr. Archaul created three different study guides that the students completed and then he went over each one with them. Some teachers choose to pick students with their hands up but today he chose to pick randomly. I liked this method because then everyone was able to contribute to the conversation. I talked of the economics project in my previous post. Throughout the afternoon, I spent my time in two of Mr. Cramer's sixth grade English classes. The students had a few tasks to complete to prove that they were a legit business. They had to come up with things such as a name, a product, a price, jobs, what to bring, and many others. With Mr. Cramer, I went around to each "company", talking their business through and eventually approving it with my signature. This activity has been my favorite so far because I was able to actually pull out the wisdom that each student possessed and see education in action.
Today has been more of a laid back day. Mr. Stenger's seventh grade English class continues their research. I have been helping them find "legit" sources, citing each source, and also aiding them with the structure of their paper. For the paper they need to have background on the Renaissance, background of a famous person during that time period, and the legacy that that person possesses. I was also able to continue the Economics project, helping the businesses design a poster/an advertisement.

Sun's Blog - Week 3

On Sunday, we had a house concert. I picked up Jodi at 1:45, loaded food on trunk and went to Mrs. Gross house. When we got there around 2, Jodi's helpers came too. I was busy working in the kitchen with the food and snacks for the concert. The musicians also came to rehearse before the concert. At 3:30, people started coming, so I had to help getting coats and giving out the program books. People were getting wine and snacks before the concert, so we had to keep preparing for food. The program started at around 4, and the first piece was Violin Sonata Op. 27, No.6 in E Major by E. Ysaye. Timothy Kanter, the violinist, played it wonderfully. This piece is one of the most difficult pieces to play, so I was impressed that he played it. The second piece, The Swan by C.Saint-Saens, was played by the trio, Timothy, Annalisa Boerner, and Brian Thornton. Brian Thornton actually plays with Cleveland Orchestra. The last piece, my favorite, was String Trio No. 1 in E Flat Major, Op. 3 by L. van Beethoven. It was a 30 minute-piece, but for me, it sounded so much shorter than 30 minutes. After the concert was over, people stayed around to have some food and drinks. I helped Jodi till 8. It was tiring yet fun experience.

Taylor - Blog #6

On Friday, another senior from Brunswick (I think), Jessica, started working at Flashes. So I spent part of the morning showing her around the office and introducing her to everyone. Then, I started working on a project with Lisa, the head of marketing and special events. A large part of her job involves the design and production of Flashes of Hope brochures, pamphlets, newsletters, etc. When designing, Lisa has to make sure that she chooses photos that picture kids of different genders, ages, races, and appearances so that the promotional materials are not homogenous. So, Flashes created a database of over 500,000 photos from every photo shoot since the organization’s start in 2001. All Lisa has to do is search, for example, “caucasian, toddler, boy,” and all the photos of patients that meet those criteria are found. So today I spent a lot of time labeling some of the photos from previous photo shoots. The description of each patient consists of their age, their race, their appearance (such as whether or not the patient had hair, if they had any accessories on, whether they had any feeding tubes or IVs, etc.), who was in the picture with them (mom, dad, siblings, hospital staff, stuffed/real animal, etc.), and the name of the hospital where they were photographed.

In the afternoon, after I picked up lunch, I typed up a spreadsheet of the major donors to Flashes of Hope and their contact information for use when sending out invitations and letters for Flashes’s largest fundraising event, “Big Shots, Little Stars.” At the event last fall, the “Big Shots,” who are the largest donors, and the “Little Stars,” who are some of the photographed pediatric cancer patients, put on a fashion show to raise money. One of the Big Shots who, according to Allison, was the star of the fashion show, was Mr. Rayburn. I got to look through pictures of the fashion show and saw a couple shots of him strutting down the runway and posing in a ridiculous red jacket, which was really entertaining to see.

Also, there was a problem with a chapter director in DC that caused some chaos in the office. One of the families that was photographed at a shoot in DC a few months ago had tried to contact the chapter director to see if their photos could be rushed delivered because their son’s condition was worsening, so they wanted him to be able to see the pictures before he died. This request is very common so chapter directors are expected to make this their first priority and send the pictures overnight. However, neither the family, hospital nor local child life specialist could contact this chapter director. After a few weeks of emailing and calling the chapter director without any response, the child passed away without ever having the chance to see the pictures from that special day. Shocked by the irresponsible chapter director, the child life specialist finally decided to call the headquarters to see if anyone could find a way to get the family the photographs of their son in time for his funeral. When Hannah heard what had happened, she immediately made different calls to find an explanation for what had happened with the chapter director, and in fact found out that the director had the photos sitting in her office for nearly three weeks, but did simply forgot to mail the pictures. This was the first time that I had witnessed a problem within the organization so it was really interesting to see how the issue was dealt with an eventually resolved.

Sun's Blog - Week 2

Yesterday, I took a day off because I had to work this weekends. I still had to do a lot of cleaning at my house, but I thought it was nice to take a break on friday. So, today, I woke up at 8:30 and got ready to go to a concert that was at 11am. This concert is free for all, and it's actually for kids to learn about orchestra music. "Daniel And Snakeman" is the title of the concert, and it's organized by City Music Cleveland. It was an interesting concert because throughout this 30 minute piece, Scott Plate, the narrator, narrated the story. There were tons of kids sitting in and it was a fun experience.

After the concert, I went to Jodi's house and picked up bunch of chairs and headed to Marsha Gross's house. She offered her house for this concert, so we unloaded the chairs and carried them into her house... it was a really hard labor because we had to move all of Mrs. Gross's furnitures to her garage. The worst part of all these though, was my allergy. I'm very allergic to cats, and Marsha had at least 4 cats running around in and out of her house. I thought I got used to cats because Jodi has 12 cats at her house (in and out), but as soon as I arrived to Mrs. Gross house, my eyes were itching... It was bad!!! The laboring lasted for 2 hours but I'm sooooo exhausted right now... I can't even move. But I'm really excited for the concert tomorrow!

Kyle's Senior Project Week 2

Project has been pretty good so far. Last Friday, I spent half of the day inputting recruits into the computer. Although it was boring, I know I helped them out. For the second half, I went over to the athletic trainer and worked with her. What she does is pretty similar to what Meg does at Hawken. We taped up the baseball players before their practice and then went out there and watched them and waited for any injuries. Monday, I couldn't go to project because I had two APs. Tuesday, however, I got back to work. I helped Coach Slesh write the letter to prospective recruits. and helped them get labels and mail the letters out. On Wednesday, Coach Slesh was in Pittsburgh so I worked with another coach on the coaching staff. Together, we finished off the letters. Thursday and Today, I watched videos of recruits that Coach Slesh got while he was in Pittsburgh. I helped them grade the recruits which they do on a 3 point scale. I also helped them prepare for the recruiting camp they are having tomorrow. Tomorrow, 25 recruits of the class of 2012 will come to Case to show their talent to Case's coaches. Many of them will become Case players in the fall of 2012. Overall, I am enjoying the project thoroughly. Though I have done some tedious work, I enjoy being around football and some pretty cool guys.

Taylor - Blog #5

On Wednesday, I had to take my AP Stat test, so I didn’t go into work that day. Yesterday, I had the chance to spend the day with the two women who run Kick-It, Cathy and Holly. In the morning, I went to the office to work for a little bit on various projects and then went with Cathy and Holly to the US lower school in Shaker to attend a meeting about US’s upcoming Kick-It event in June. Before the meeting, I had never thought that planning a kickball event would be so complicated. However, I guess I was wrong. We ended up meeting with Leslie, the “House Headmaster,” and the head of the lower school to discuss the logistics of the Kick-It event. They are planning on having their Kick-It day on their last day of school, which is their final House day. Each House is going to form a kickball team, so there will be ten teams total. A major part of the meeting was dedicated towards planning the pep rally that is going to take place next Friday to explain what exactly Kick-It is and to get them excited for their event. As an incentive to fundraise prior to their June event, Kick-It is planning on taking the top fundraising team downtown to play kickball on Progressive Field, and will also provide Indians tickets to the top individual fundraisers. Allison, the founder of Flashes, and Quinn, her son who founded Kick-It, are going to speak at the pep rally, so I’m hoping that I will be able to attend to see Quinn talk about his hugely successful, nationwide fundraising event.

Taylor - Blog #4

Oops. Thought I posted this on Wednesday but I guess I didn't.

This week so far truthfully hasn’t been too, too exciting. On Monday, I continued adding photographers and their photos onto the Flashes of Hope website. When I started working on this project and began looking through all of the photos from many shoots, one of the women I work closely with warned me about coming across a photo of a child whose information box (which is underneath every picture) said “deceased.” Unfortunately, that happened for the first time on Monday. Even though I was warned ahead of time about that happening, it was still extremely hard to see and especially hard to forget. I ended up updating the photographers for every chapter, and even though it took a long time to do, it was nice knowing that completing that project was really helpful for the Flashes staff since everyone is so busy with other projects.

Yesterday, I worked on another project with Hannah, the Chapter Director and Public Relations Coordinator. In order to continue working towards its goal, “to photograph every child until every child is cured,” Flashes must make sure that each chapter photographs at least, but hopefully more pediatric cancer patients than the previous year. So, I had to go through the photo shoot logs from every chapter and record the number of patients that have been photographed thus far in 2011. If the current numbers of photographed children for a certain chapter were unusually low compared to previous years, then I researched and tried to figure out different ways to increase those numbers until the chapter is back on track. For example, the Indianapolis chapter is currently having trouble with attendance at photo shoots. So, I Googled and researched any upcoming events for pediatric cancer patients that will be taking place in or around Indianapolis that Flashes of Hope could attend to photograph many children in one or two days. Initially, I had a lot of trouble finding events that were actually for the patients themselves since many of the events surrounding pediatric cancer are fundraising events for donors and hospital representatives. However, I eventually narrowed down my search and began finding events such as picnics and mini-camps/sports days for the patients. Hopefully, should their budget permit, Flashes of Hope representatives/chapter directors and the volunteer photographers, makeup artists and stylists will be able to attend these events to photograph many patients.

Sun's Blog - Week 2

Today I went to Jodi's house at 1 o clock to finish off making the program books. I printed three double sided papers (manually... wasn't fun!) total of 70 copies of each page. I've been volunteering for Jodi whenevershe had a concert coming up, but I never printed or edited the program books before, so it was interesting to do the job. After printing out all the papers, I folded them in half put them together, and stapled them. After a while my hands started to hurt... but other than that, I had fun! Actually the reason I went to her house so late was because Jodi and I planned to go to Oberlin College. Oberlin is renowned to have excellent classical musicians, and Jodi knows many of them. Jodi frequently go to Oberlin or CIM recitals to hear students' music, and if she likes him/her, she decides to put them on her concerts. This time when wevisited Oberlin wasn't for picking out students. Julia Dawson, a soprano, played for Jodi couple of times and she is graduating this year. Jodi wanted to see her recital before Julia head off to her graduate school.So, Jodi and I drove for about an hour to be at Oberlin. Julia's mini concert was at the coffee shop, and there were a lot of people waiting to hear her music. The concert wasn't really formal because it was a coffee house,but it was exciting to see how people were enjoying the concert casually. The songs that Julia and the other baritons sang were about coffee. Julia portrayed a woman who was addicted to caffeine, and basically her dad wants toforbid her from drinking coffee. I loved how Julia made very funny facial expressions to deliver that she was addicted to coffee. All of the audience loved her/him singing! The concert lasted for about 30 minutes. After the coffee house, Jodi and I had a dinner with Yejin Lee, who is also a senior. Jodi told me that Yejin plays piano beautifully. I wanted to see her playing piano, but we just had a dinner.Around 8 o' clock, Jodi and I went back home.

Project- Week 2 pt.2 Tommy

The past two days I have been able to experience different classroom environments. I decided to drop into one of the sixth grade Social Studies classes, taught by Mr. Hagan. The class was preparing for an economics project and going over specific terms that would help them succeed throughout the project. I will be assisting the students throughout their project design and during the actual event. This project is a special one for the sixth graders in that it is an interdisciplinary activity. The courses that will be used are English, Math, Social Studies, and Science. Each group comes up with an item to sell and must act as managers of their item. Below is a list of the courses and some aspects of each of them...

English: Creativity/Development (A poster for advertisment)

Math: Money/Budget (Pricing of products)

Social Studies: Economics/Proposals (Mainly background)

Science: Sanitation/Safety

During Mr. Hagan's class, the students learned the different concepts of Economics with a teaching process by Dr. Mark Forget (pronounced forzháy). Mr. Hagan twisted Forget's idea of an anticipation guide with a True and False guide. The teacher goes over with the class whether or not a statement is true or false. Then the students must pick out certain words or phrases that will help them decide true or false. Lastly, they must prove it. I thought this was an interesting and also very productive way of teaching the lesson and teaching the students a new tool.

Today I was given a lesson from my math teacher I am shadowing, Mrs. Zampini. The lesson revolves around linear functions, graphing them, x and y intercepts, etc. She would like me to come up with a lesson plan by next Monday and be able to teach the class. I am a little bit nervous but very excited to be the teacher!

Sun's Blog - Week 2 Mon&Tue

On Monday, I went to Maddi's house to make some Italian cookies. I made them for Jodi's house concert! Also, since Maddi's cooking Italian food for her senior project, she helped meso much when we were making lemon cookies. We baked them thoroughly, and we ate so much dough while making it...We took some pictures for Maddi's cooking book, put frosting on top of the cookies (this was the hardest part of all)and finally we made about 100 cookies total. It was a very exciting moment because I've never baked cookies before.

Today, I went to Jodi's house at 1 o' clock and started printing out the program books. I never thought printing was hard to do, but it was hard since I had to manually doubleside the pages... That was the most difficult part and it took a really long time. I forgot to mention that I met a violinist before I started printing. He is going to play at Jodi's concert in July.

Sam and David Blog #2

On Friday May 6th, Sam and I split up from Jana and Sara once again, because the two of them had an interview downtown. The two of us drove around downtown Chicago, since we spent much of the previous day outside of the city, and got footage of foreclosed houses downtown. To our surprise, there were a fair amount of foreclosed homes, apartments, buildings etc. Even small businesses in the city were struggling. Finally, when we compiled all the footage, we went to pick up Jana and Sara, and had lunch downtown.

Since we had a pretty late lunch, we had a small amount of time to kill in the city before meeting up with Jana's family friend downtown for dinner.

After about an hour or two of the four of us editing our footage, we packed up and drove to the restaurant called 'Le Creperie' where we were to have dinner. It was very delightful, tasty food, good conversation, all you could ask for!

The four of us then drove home, and slept wonderfully.

We woke up around 8:30am on Saturday, left my great uncle and aunt's house after a breakfast they prepared, and headed downtown.  We got our last footage of the city, had lunch, and then drove the 6 hours back to Cleveland. Overall, our trip to Chicago was very informative. Sam and I found a lot more information than expected, at times it seemed easy to discover a foreclosed house. The amount of foreclosed homes in the city as well as outside of the city was overwhelming.

Yesterday, although Sam and I did not meet because he had an AP test, we did individual research on foreclosed homes in Cleveland, and edited our footage. Both of us look forward to a great week ahead.

xoxoxoxoxo Sam and Dave

Project up to May 10th

So my first week at the Cleveland Sports Commission I assisted Lauren Harris, the event coordinator for the Cleveland Classic. The Cleveland Classic is September 9th and 10th with mulitple events. On the 9th there is a college readiness fair along with a greek step show in the evening. On the 10th there are tailgating activities up to the main event, the football game. The football game is played between two Historical Black College Universitys (HBCU). At half time there will be a battle of the bands event which consist of the performances by both bands and the drumlines going against each other. So on monday I was first introduced to everybody and got to sit in on some conference calls about the Classic. I then was shown to my desk and waited while they set up my email address and log in information. When that was over with I got my first assignment which was to find a practice field for one of the colleges to practice on the day before the game. I gathered about 15 numbers from different schools in the cleveland area and called them all. Unfortunantly, I got a, "we have a football game," from nearly everyone of them, and the others would just say, "we dont actually have a football field." So that was both fun, awkward at times, and good experience for me. Also, since the Cleveland Sports Commission is located above Tower City, I will always have a good lunch.

On the Second day I made the agenda for the committe meeting on friday and also made a list of greek orginizations from different schools so we could email them about the step show and possibly being able to use one of their teams. The second day was probably the slowest day of the week because it was right in the middle of things.

On Thrusday we had to prepare for the meeting. I made name tags for everyone, tent cards, and put together 22 packs of 100 flyers, which took a very long time. Finally friday came and I got to go to the meeting. The meeting was held at the Browns stadium so I went there first thing Friday morning. I was very confused on how to actually get into the building but I eventually figured it out. It was exciting to have my name on the list the security guards had at the gates and having to be escorted to the visitors locker room, where the meeting was held. When I first saw that we were going into the visitors locker room I was like, why is it in a locker room?, but I forgot I was in a professional stadium so everything is probably nice, and I was right. The Locker room had carpet floors the lockers were ginormous and the bathrooms had nice tile and granite tops. When I got there I settled myself in and put the meeting agenda at every seat and gave the members of the committe their name tags as they walked in. A lot of different companies and organizations were represented at that meeting for this event. The meeting began with Elliot Taylor talking about the objectives of the day, and then quickly moved along to the breakout sessions. The breakout sessions were smaller committes that were organizing each activity for the weekend. Because I just went through the whole college process, they thought I would be more valuable to go to the College Readiness table to gives suggestions. We talked about all of the goals of the college readiness fair, and how the day would go. Suprisingly, I did a lot of talking then I thought I would. After about an hour of discussing the agenda for the Fair we all got back together with the other groups and presented what we discussed. After the meeting I met a lot of people and also met a Prepper Alumni, which was a funny conversation.

On Monday two other interns arrived, one from highschool and the other from college. The other highschool intern and I worked on calling bus companies and receiving quotes for transportation for one of the teams and also helped organize some supplies and old materials because the organization is moving in a few weeks.

So far this project has been a lot of fun and I've been exposed to a lot of different things.

Project- Week 2 Tommy

Today begins another day, another week in the excitement of education here at Eastlake Middle School. I would like to first talk about how I ended my day last friday and the extra work I completed this past weekend for my teacher. On Friday, I began to feel more comfortable in the classroom, being able to step up and do more with the students. Along with assisting students individually and in groups, I also had two projects to complete for my English teacher. I spent around two hours or so on the computer. My first task was to type up a Character Chart study packet for the 7th grade English students. The students are currently reading The Outsiders and my teacher wanted a way so that they could record and keep track of all the characters throughout the novel. The packet turned out to be five pages, with a total of ten character charts. One block is labeled "Physical Description" and the other "Personality Traits". The students have been directed to add information about the character as they learn new facts or descriptions. I have posted a picture of the front page to the above-right, I hope (all of the succeeding pages look familiar). The other project had to do with the 9th grade high ability English class. The class is currently learning about Shakespeare and will begin reading Romeo and Juliet very soon. In order to prepare them for this piece of art, we decided to give background on Shakespeare. My teacher always gives out a diagram of the Globe Theatre and verbally tells the class to label each section according to its name (such as Hell, the Tiring House, the Gallery, etc.). In order to make the activity easier to teach and better learned, I found the diagram online and then labelled each section using powerpoint. This way the labels can fall down into place as he talked about them. I also posted a picture of the diagram I created to the above-left, I once again hope. I also decided to spice things up a bit and found present day photos of the Globe Theatre. I included the photos in the presentation along with some research on the building and events that took place there. The research was mainly pictures of the time period that Romeo and Juliet began to show at the theater. I figured it would benefit the class if they could visualize what everything looked like as they read the play. I continued the "Shakespeare project" through the weekend. My teacher wanted to show a VHS tape called Shakespeare in the Classroom but did not know how to view it on his projector. I was luckily able to create a makeshift way of viewing it and came out successful. Off to class again :)

Taylor - Blog #3

Yesterday, I spent most of my time working with Flashes’s website. In order to acknowledge a photographer’s donation of time and services, Flashes records every photographer’s name and link to their personal website on the Flashes of Hope webpage. Along with the photographer’s information, a picture that the photographer took at one of the Flashes shoots is also included to display their talent. Since there are only 10 women that work at the Cleveland base, this is one of the projects that needs additional help. So, I was in charge of going through the logs from every chapter and adding any photographers that were not already listed on the website. I actually really liked doing this because I had the chance to go through the entire database of pictures form various photo shoots and pick my favorite photo for each photographer that I added to the site. A majority of the photos showed patients smiling and enjoying the shoot with their family, friends, or stuffed animals. However, a percentage of the photos showed patients who had just undergone their chemotherapy treatment, and were too weak or in too much pain to even smile. While those pictures were extremely depressing, the many other photos that picture the patients laughing and playing really showed the great impact that these Flashes photo shoots had on their disposition.

In the afternoon, I was supposed to attend a Kick-It pep rally at Brecksville Middle School. However, there was a little miscommunication between one of the Kick-It representatives, Cathy, and I, so I unfortunately ended up not being able to make it to the pep rally in time. Cathy was completely understandable about the misunderstanding and promised to take me to a different rally sometime within the next few weeks. So… I guess I learned the importance of communication in a business?

Since I can’t talk about the rally, obviously, I guess I’ll just explain what Kick-It is and hope to write about my involvement with the program another day. Kick-It is a national fundraising program that was started by Quinn Clarke (Allison Clarke’s son) when he was nine years old, in the midst of his cancer battle. He hoped to raise money for cancer research through the game of kickball. The first kickball game held to raise money for research took place in Chagrin Falls. Now, Kick-It events take place all over the country. Since the program’s start, over 150 games have been played nationally and over $273,000 has been donated. The fundraising and set-up for the event is somewhat similar to Relay for Life. So, if a neighborhood, school, or business decided to hold a Kick-It event, people within that community would form multiple kickball teams that started fundraising during the months leading to the event. Money is also collected through admission to the kickball games and through food sales. 100% of the funds raised from Kick-It events are given to the world’s largest pediatric cancer research group, The Children’s Oncology Group. In the next few weeks, I am going to be involved with event planning for Kick-It and am potentially going to organize my own kickball event.

Taylor - Blog #2

In addition to hosting photo shoots at hundreds of hospitals, Flashes of Hope chapter directors and multiple professional photographers travel to pediatric cancer camps around the country to photograph hundreds of children in one day. When Flashes of Hope attends a certain camp for the first time, staff members from the Cleveland headquarters have to accompany the local chapter director to ensure everything runs smoothly. Once it is confirmed that the chapter director can manage the camp activities independently, members from the headquarters no longer need to be involved in subsequent years. Since Flashes of Hope is a non-profit, there is a strict yearly travel budget for the staff members at the Cleveland headquarters. So, yesterday, Hannah, the Chapter Director and Public Relations Coordinator, assigned me the task of being the “travel agent” for the headquarter representatives who travel to the camps. I had to find the cheapest airfares, car rentals, and hotel rates for each trip to 15 or so of the camps that will take place within the rest of 2011, while managing to keep the total travel cost within the yearly travel budget. While this doesn’t sound too hard, it was actually the most frustrating task considering most of the camps are literally in the middle of nowhere with no hotels in sight. It was also impossible to find airfares that were reasonably priced. So, it took me practically the whole day. But, the good news is that the total cost for all of the trips was significantly less than the travel budget, so the extra money left over can be used for Flashes’s fundraising events. During the next couple days, I will start to work more with the nationwide fundraising program called Kick-It, which I will explain later on.

Sun's Blog - Week 1

Hey guys, it's Sun! For my senior project, i'm working with Jodi Kanter who is the director of the non-profit organization called M.U.S.i.C. What this organization does is fascinating. Basically, young classical musicians from Oberlin Conservatory music to Cleveland Institute of Music get to perform at house concerts. This organization gives these opportunities to uprising musi8cians to get more experience in music performances. M.U.S.i.C. isn't as big as Cleveland City Music or other music organizations in Cleveland, but it's certainly growing. Last concert, which was in March, drew around 100 guests at Hanah Perkins, and in addition to the sold out tickets, many people donated money to support the musicians. So overall, my task for senior project is to help out Jodi for May 15th condert.

So on my first day of the senior project, I went to Jodi's house and she and I spent time together to schedule what I should do everyday. Then the next day, which was Tuesday, I started working on editing the newsletter for this organization.. I edited some parts of the newspaper so that people who don't know about M.U.S.i.C. could understand about the organization better. After finishing working on the newsletter, I spent time copying some papers that Jodi wanted me to copy. Exciting moment came when I got to help Jodi out on how to create a facebook group invitation for her upcoming weaving exhibition. It was fun to follow Jodi around and watch how things are done to prepare for the house concert!

Sam and David Senior Project

For those of you who don't know, David and I are traveling around the eastern United States on a road trip to do a documentary on housing/the foreclosure crisis and to work with Habitat for Humanity, while documenting their contributions to help fix the crisis. Jana and Sara are doing a documentary on a different project, but the four of us are traveling on the same itinerary in the same car.

Immediately following our AP Calculus tests on Wednesday morning, David and I left for Chicago with Jana and drove for six hours to David's Aunt and Uncle's house in Deerfield, IL (about 20-30 minutes outside of downtown Chicago). We arrived after dark, talked logistics with our incredibly wonderful and generous hosts, had some nice conversations, then proceeded to go to bed after a nice dinner of chicago-style pizza.

On Thursday morning, we woke up around 8:00am Chicago time, had breakfast with David's aunt and uncle, and then left to meet up with Sara, who flew into Chicago early in the morning, since she had a chorus concert the night before. We met Sara at a Caribou downtown, then David and I took about twenty minutes to verify our travel route for the day. Jana and Sara had interviews throughout the day in the same area, so David and I used the car while the two girls remained downtown for their appointments. For those of you familiar with the Chicago area, David and I went to Riverdale, Park Forest, and western Will County. All three of these areas have been notably effected by the foreclosure crisis, so we got plenty of film footage and pictures of foreclosed, vacant, boarded up, and for sale houses. Since we are working with Habitat, David and I went to several houses that the Chicago chapter of Habitat for Humanity has built or rebuilt. We took multiple photos of these houses. Also, Will County had the highest foreclosure rate in all of the Chicago area, so it was a great opportunity for us to get content for our documentary. You guys might find this interesting - Will County looks very much like areas near Hawken: South Russel, Moreland Hills, Solon, etc. with developments of large houses, and it had the highest foreclosure rate. When David and I were driving through, we stopped in some of the developments, and were (at least I was) genuinely surprised to see how many of these houses were for sale per development. Sometimes two or three out of every five of these large houses were vacant or for sale as a result of the housing crisis, which is interesting because I only thought of the economic downturn as having effected the urban areas.

Today we are continuing to do the same thing, except yesterday we traveled farther than we expected (it took us about an hour and a half to get from Will County to Clark Street where Sara and Jana were) so we are staying closer to the city and getting more urban footage. We only will be at the hosts' houses in the morning and at night, so we have to stop into internet cafes to type our posts during the day, which is why this is coming at 1:48, in the middle of our project.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Sam and David

David and Sam

Figuring out how to post. Post coming soon.

Project- Week 1 Tommy

For my senior project, I have chosen to shadow/student teach at my local public school- Eastlake Middle School. Throughout the day, I follow around and assist three different teachers that are from each grade (6th-8th). My main teacher, my sponsor, is Mr. Stenger. He is my most memorable teacher and also was my cross-country/track coach. I decided to use this project as a head start towards my choice of a career. Some day, I would like to be a teacher (private or public and age is still undecided). So far, my experience at Eastlake has been beneficial and interesting, solving mysteries that I had about the field of teaching. On the first day, I brainstormed with my sponsor in order to figure out what my daily schedule would look like. Basically, I am with three teachers- Mr. Stenger (English 7th/8th Honors), Mr. Cramer (English 6th), and Mrs. Zampini (Math 7th Honors). I have learned some valuable lessons about teaching by taking notes and also taking part in educating the students. Not only am I able to take note of how the teachers educate, I also sit down and talk with them. We have discussed certain subjects such as: disclipine incorporated with education, putting creativity into the set curriculum, keeping the students engaged in the course, and many other things that are effective. I am currently in 3rd period, my "planning period" in which I have designated to assist Mr. Stenger and also work on my blog. In my next blog, I will go over in more detail the discussions with the teachers. I would like to end this blog with something that was quite surprising and humorous to me- there is much drama and gossip among teachers as if they were still in high school.

Kyle- Project through Thursday May 5th

It's hard to follow talking about Taylor's project with talking about mine, as, in comparison, my project's relative importance is very small. Nonetheless, I decided to do something related to football, as I knew I would enjoy it. I am working with Case Western's assistant football coach.

On Monday, I got a tour of Case's campus with a focus on the areas essential for the life of a football player. The campus is actually much nicer and bigger than I expected. Coach Slesh decided to do this because he said that, often, a prospective student athlete will come for a visit on a random day. Many times, most of the coaches are too busy to give the tour. This is where I may come in to play in the future. I may give a prospective recruit a tour of the campus, making sure to make mention of all the things Coach Slesh showed me in his tour for me. I also met the rest of the coaching staff and a few of the players.

On Tuesday, I attended a funeral in the middle of the day so I didn't go down to Case. On Wednesday, I had my BC Calc exam.

Today, thursday, Case had a full staff meeting on their admissions issues this year. Therefore, I was left with a pile of pamphlets that the coaches had received the previous night at a recruiting camp. Basically, I found all the players that were candidates to play at Case (good athletes with high GPAs and good test scores). I then entered their data into Case's recruiting computer program. It was interesting to see many kids I have met throughout my years playing football on the lists of potential recruits. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed what I have done so far and look forward to the rest of my project.

Taylor - Project Days 1 + 2

So, for those of you who don’t know, I am working with a nonprofit organization called Flashes of Hope. Based in Cleveland, Flashes of Hope works to change the way children who suffer from cancer and other terminal illnesses view themselves and their disease through photography. The founder of Flashes of Hope, Allison Clarke, created this organization when her son was diagnosed with cancer. As a former model, Allison and her huge network of photographers, makeup artists, and hairstylists traveled to various local hospitals to transform hospital rooms into photo studios and photograph pediatric cancer patients with their family, friends, nurses, pets, etc. Through these beautiful black and white photos (such as the one on the right) many of these patients began to see their changing appearance (loss of hair, weight, etc.) as a result of their illness much differently. Also, during her son’s treatment, Allison unfortunately met many families of recently deceased children that were left without a photograph of their child. So, the photographs taken by Flashes of Hope are given to the patient and their families as a keepsake free of charge. Now, 10 years after the first shoot was held at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, there are over 50 Flashes of Hope chapters throughout the US that, in total, photograph over 4,000 patients and their families each year.

On my first day of project, I had my APES test and didn’t end up working. On Tuesday, Natalie, the Image and Photographer Relations Manager, gave me a tour of the office and introduced me to the other 9 women who work at Flashes of Hope. For my first project, I put together packages of photos from a recent photo shoot, and then mailed them to the families of the patients who were photographed. My next assignment was to work on a section of their annual report, which was interesting but got extremely boring after awhile. In the past, Flashes never had to compose an annual report because it was never considered a big enough business, so it was never really necessary. However, now, due to many generous donations and an increasing client base, Flashes has to start composing annual reports, starting with this past year. So, I had to go through various documents and record every makeup artist, hair stylist, and photographer used at every Flashes of Hope photo shoot in 2010. On Wednesday, I finished working on that part of the annual report, and then helped archive and edit what felt like a thousand photos from various photo shoots. After only two days, I have been involved in many conversations and meetings, and have already learned a lot about the formation and growths of non-profits such as Flashes of Hope.

Welcome to Senior Project 2011

Welcome to the Senior Project Gray Blog 2011!

Seniors on project, I hope your first week has been a good one so far.You may post on the blog three or more times per week, and, in doing so, fulfull your requirement for the written midterm report -- though you will still need to be present for the midterm report meeting on May 16 (for those of you doing your project in town).

You may also read and respond to the blogs of other seniors in your project group. Your advisors, classmates, and interested parents look forward to reading about your projects. Take it away!