Baha’i junior youth service project
7 Mar
Lowell Mass-19.jpg (CC / BY-NC-ND 2.0 by Anne Ruthmann)
It is so beautiful outside today! Continuing our commitment to post every day throughout the Baha’i Fast, here is the promised report about the junior youth group’s service project.
Based on a visit to one of the homes of the junior youth, we had agreed to offer service with some of the elderly folks at the Community Family day center. It was a wonderful experience. We had prepared the previous week by making cards with the quotation “…let your heart burn with loving-kindness for all who may cross your path.” On the back of each card, the junior youth wrote questions about friendship, such as “What does friendship mean to you,” or “How have you experienced friendship in your life?” These questions tied in nicely with conversations we had been having within the junior youth group.
The staff and the elders at Community Family were happy to have us, and were very kind. We ended up having a productive conversation about friendship, and then the junior youth played some games with the elders.
After the activities, we walked home together and reflected about our experiences. One of the junior youth remarked that he wasn’t sure what the elders at the center really needed, and we talked about his understanding that service should be about the needs of other people – not about your own desires. We agreed that the best way to better understand the needs of the elders at the center would be to continue to get to know them by visiting and spending time with them.
Next week we will find out whether the junior youth want to continue this kind of service project, or focus on something else. But I have no doubt that they’ve demonstrated their capacity to act, reflect, and consult about making a difference in their community.
It sounds like you’re doing great things in the community! Thanks so much for providing photo credit! Let me know if there are any other ways I can help!
Also, since you appear to be local, I added your blog to LowellHandmade.com – scroll down along the side to see it.
Anne, thanks so much! (All my librarian friends will be so proud that I’m attributing Creative Commons work correctly.) Negin and I moved to Lowell almost exactly one year ago to do this kind of community development work, and we couldn’t be happier with our adopted hometown.
Your photos are gorgeous, and I appreciate the link. Do you mind if I use more of your pictures in future posts? And it’s so funny that your site is called LowellHandmade because just last night, Negin taught me how to sew.
As someone who has two Donna Howells-Sickles prints on the living room wall, I really like the banner at the top of the blog.
And great work on the service project.
Thanks, Ken. The banner is one thing that’s not well attributed on this blog — it’s a derivative work based on “And the Cowgirl Jumped over the Moon.” Donna Howell-Sickles is acknowledge in the very first post on this blog, though: http://www.mollusc.org/wordpress/personal-mythology
I gotta ask – have we met in person? Northfield was a good home for 4 years.