Pinewoods & ALCES

During the semester, I volunteered at two different places: Pinewoods and ALCES. I decided to do this because I wanted to get a better understanding of the many Latino organizations in Athens as well as associate myself with its large Latino community.

Pinewoods is a library located in the Pinewoods trailer park near Athens Tech. It was started by the Athens Regional Library System and a few passionate people. I had never heard of the library or this area before, so I was interested in seeing what went on out there. I soon came to find that Pinewoods is a tight knit community where anyone, but mostly immigrants, can move their families. Many of the families have non-English speaking parents I found, while the children are usually bilingual. Not only can they live there, but they can also learn there. The library has programs teaching Spanish reading and writing, English speaking, and English reading and writing for adults. I decided to work with the kids, who usually come into the library after class to do homework and play on the computers. By the time I was able to get there, I would help different kids with their homework and then head to the computers to watch them play games, and sometimes to play games with them, although I was terrible. It seems to me that these kids enjoy having people to look up to and to just hang out with. They were always impressed when I knew how to do their homework and were even more impressed when I said I was in college. I asked one smart little boy if he was planning to go to college, and he told me that he wanted to. I like to think that he will do everything in his power to get to college and follow his dreams. All in all, the library in Pinewoods is one of the best programs I have worked with since I started school here in 2008.

I began working with ALCES in early April. I signed up to help their PR intern, Maria. ALCES is another education center for the Hispanic population in Athens. They also volunteer at major Athens events as well as host their own events. Twilight, the bike race that goes through downtown Athens, is one of these events. Twilight is this weekend, and I am excited to help ALCES set up and get the word out about their organization. ALCES' event Taste of Americas is next Monday at Farm 255 in downtown Athens. They are having food catered by many of the major Mexican restaurants in town. We have been promoting the event and I am excited to volunteer at that as well. I will continue working with Maria through the summer with their events, which I think will be a good experience. I appreciate the fact that this class allowed me to find this organization.

Parent/teacher conferences were another activity I enjoyed. At first I was nervous. I walked into Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School with no idea what to expect. The first conference I sat in on had already begun when I walked in, and the teacher was letting the fifth grade boy to translate between she and his mother. I did not realize that the parents couldn't speak any English, so that was tricky when I began to translate for them. I was able to recall all of the "school" jargon that I had learned in high school Spanish. This fifth grade boy was going to be placed in advanced classes in middle school, and he was really excited about it. I was very impressed by him. His parents were unable to help him with his English homework, and he was driven enough to work hard and be in top of his fifth grade class. In my next parent/teacher conference I saw the other end of the spectrum. A mother walked in with her three children for her youngest daughter's pre-school conference. According to the teacher, this child had serious problems concentrating and was probably going to be held back one year. The teacher asked the older sister if she was able to get the younger girl to read to her, and she said that she couldn't. And the non-English speaking mother couldn't help either. At this point I wondered if they lived in Pinewoods, because I wanted to see if I could help her with her homework, but I had to stick to the script and simply translate. It was interesting to see how the two children and their conferences varied so much, growing up in very similar homes. I will definitely volunteer at parent/teacher conferences again.