Our Personal Reflections
A word from Miranda Wilkes
For this project I was the project manager. I worked on the task plan to make sure we were getting done what needed to be done. I helped guide and manage the project as a whole, while my team members worked on one part that contributed to the whole. I worked with each sub group and made sure everyone could do the task they had to do. To me, my job was to look at the project as a whole and make sure it was on track.
The practices that I found the most useful during this project were encourage the heart and challenge the process. There was a period of time while working on our project communication with our non profit was slow and left us confused and stressed out. We knew that we couldn’t just sit there and wait around, we had to challenge the process and figure out how to work on the project until we got the necessary information. One thing that we did was create a separate task plan of things to do until we were able to hear back from our non profit. Because this time was so stressful and hard to get through, encouragement and positivity were really needed which is why encourage the heart was so important. Every meeting we squeezed each others hands to pass energy and good vibes to each other, which really built a sense of community and friendship in the group. With this friendly environment, working on this big project didn’t seen so hard.
After going to my non-profit I now see that most kids there are very excited and happy despite whatever they have going on. When I go to the doctor’s, even if I’m not sick, it’s quiet. The people there are happy, welcoming and always smiling. It’s a feeling I really cannot describe, and it's a feeling I wish everyone could experience. When my team and I first arrived, we barely had time to finish setting up because the kids were just so excited to do the crafts we had brought for them. And to think I was worried no one would show up. The kids in the hospital often times do not have a lot of choices and are told what they have to do, so to be able to give them a chance to choose, even though it’s small, became a very important part in this project. My team enabled the kids to act, and choose what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it.
This project connects to Catholic social teaching through family, community, and participation. Our team mission was to Heal the Heart of those affected by cancer, and we wanted to do that by bringing art to kids in hospitals to remind them that their life isn’t just the hospital walls, and there's people out there who care about them. Family and community can be one of the most important things in a person’s life, and my group wants to help make sure that the community is just as important to the kids as it is to us. And after doing this project, I can see that it is.
For this project to grow, in my opinion, we would go over to the hospital more often that way we would have the chance to interact with more kids. After my first event, my team and I didn’t want to leave because of the little friends we had made. Instead of just two days, we wanted to do more. If our project were to grow, going over more would definitely be a key part. My team and I had discussed a while back of doing a side project called “Mega Baskets” where we would make big baskets full of fun crafts for the kids to do over the holidays, and I really would want to do that next time around. Now that we know no-sew blankets could’ve been a possibility, next time, our team would seek the help from other clubs at IWA to help make and deliver the blankets to the kids. This way we could again have an impact on more kids, but so we can bring other people to share in the experience. I could really see this small group turn into a big one, with a big passion for helping heal the kids hearts affected by cancer.
A word from Grace Fisher
When we first got into our group, looking ahead it seemed like there was so much to do and we weren’t going to finish all of this in just a few months. I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to contribute to the group and help us reach our goal to get to do holiday crafts with kids at Texas Children's Hospital. After taking self assessments and finding out what our strong suits were we broke into sub-groups like budget, marketing, and event planning. I went into marketing and documenting the progress of our project. Originally I didn’t think I would be able to do much, even though there was plenty to do, but after the first few weeks we began to fit into our roles and began making a lot of progress in our project.
Even though we had assigned roles, each of us were allowed to go out and give our opinions or help other people with their jobs. I started out as a marketing person and the documenter/videographer of our project. The gears shifted and then me and the other person on marketing, morphed into being in charge of fundraising. I helped plan how and where we would raise money for our project, and I took pictures and videos of our work while we were planning to getting ready to go to Texas Children's. The idea we came up with for fundraising was to host a bake sale at our parents offices, and so I came up with the prices and amount of each baked good the team should bring so we would have enough money to carry through our project. The bake sale was a success and we had the money spent towards the supplies and toys for the kids at TCH. I continued to take videos and pictures of our project on work days and then when it came to going to the hospital another person took over and then compiled the pictures and videos into a single video showing our journey on the project.
The practice I found most useful to apply to our project was Challenge the Process. In this project I found it very useful because there were lots of bumps along the road to finally get to our destination, but without Challenge the Process, things might not have turned out like they did. We had to find ways to get over the tough things and think outside of the box to be creative and come up with solutions for anything that kept us from reaching our end goal. Enable Others to Act I found more challenging to do at first because it is all about trust and giving responsibility to the people on the team. To trust people who I had only seen in the halls but not really talked to was kind of scary, but through the course of this project we all have grown so much in our relationships with each other and now it isn't difficult to trust at all.
When we began this project I thought that people who were sick, were sad and wouldn't laugh or be happy because they had such an intense illness, but after getting to do crafts with these kids that idea disappeared. These kids that we were interacting with were so animated and full of stories and laughter and I was so surprised by how happy they were. Thinking of the smiles on their faces when they would got to do any craft they wanted, warms my heart. To know that I got to make an impact on their lives and bring them joy even if for a little bit, it's enough to call a success.
If we could keep doing this project I would be so happy to know that these kids would continually get to do crafts and we would be able to build our relationship with them more and more over visits. The first time we went to them they kept asking if we were going to come back and it made me really sad to know that we only had one last time to see and do art with them. If it could continue I think it would be a good idea to go to Texas Children's about once a month to continue doing these things with them. I feel like if we could continue to visit and do art with those kids, we would be able to turn our visits into something bigger and create something beautiful with each child. Whether it be art, a relationship, or a lifelong impact on both ours and their lives.
A word from Bousi Valentin
Within the Leading with Service class provided by IWA, a social change project was assigned to a group of students. The group I was in was named “Heal the Heart.” Our key purpose for this social change project was to bond with cancer kids with crafts or activities. Throughout the semester, the idea of the project stayed the same, but the group’s vision began to form and become more and more realistic. After finishing our social change project, our vision had been fulfilled. The time experienced with the team and the cancer children; developed my leadership skills my view of the social justice problem.
As a team member, I was a part of the budget team, along with one other person. Our job was to keep track of supplies and money as well as making sure we had enough money for our project to follow. We partnered with the fundraising team while preparing for the visits with cancer kids at Texas Children’s Hospital. We received the money made from fundraising events and spent it on supplies. We also prepared the supplies for the official visit at TCH. I mainly kept track of the money going in and out of the project and supplies, while my partner worked with specific supplies needed for each activity. We worked together in researching the places where the supplies would be purchased. While working as a part of the budget team, I used different leadership practices to succeed in my small group, later impacting the success of the entire team. I practiced inspired a shared vision at the beginning of the project. When our team was brainstorming, we all had vague similar visions for our social change project. I contributed a lot to our vision by describing what I saw in my vision and sharing it with the rest of the group. I had trouble with enabling others to act. When I get overwhelmed, I tend to get really specific about the project because I get worried that I’ll mess up somewhere. When under a lot of pressure, I prefer to do everything because I want to make sure everything works out. But over the course of the project, I learned that I’m not perfect myself and that other people can be better at certain jobs than myself. Experiencing this social change project developed my practices as a leader and improved my skills to enable others to act.
After the experience received throughout the year, my view on children with cancer has developed. Before this project, I never felt a personal connection with children with cancer. I saw it as a distant problem that I couldn’t really help with. But after my visits at Texas Children’s Hospital with cancer kids, I felt a more personal connection. I now see that this social justice problem isn’t just something that you can fix with money or counseling, I now see this topic as a personal thing. Everyone involved with this topic has a whole background and has a whole life that is affected by this problem. I now view this social justice problem with the inclusion of personality and love. In Catholic Social teaching, we are supposed to love our enemies and love our neighbors. This experience expanded my love to children that I barely even knew. I learned through meeting new people, even children, I can still love without having a special bond or connection with them.
If this project could continue or expand, I can see the weekly visits at Texas Children’s Hospital. I would love for this project to expand to a well-known standpoint so other people can know about the project. After this experience, my view on this social justice problem has changed from a distant standpoint to an up-close, personal, and loving standpoint.
When we first began our social change project, I knew who we were trying to
help, but we didn't know how exactly I would fit into the whole scheme of things. The first thing that came to my mind with cancer affected children is that they are sad and lonely. This doesn't necessarily have to be true. Though more often than not, this applied to many children, it didn't have to stay that way.
Fast forward a few weeks later and we were able to assign roles so that each
person used their strengths to benefit each area of expertise. I quickly found myself labeled “Event Planner”. Though I was very confident I could put my best foot forward, this was the first time my efforts had this much impact. Nobody, including myself, was confined to their roles. Sure, we focused most of our time on our assigned tasks, but we were also able to exchange opinions and ideas so that our visions coincided. Though I didn't work alone, I believe I've contributed as much as I possibly could to this project. I created the team name, our logo, and a few crafts used on project days. I was also in charge of planning the December 6th project date.
I found the most useful practices were Challenge the Process, Inspire a Shared
Vision, and Encourage The heart. Because we were constantly thinking of new ways to improve and perfect our plans, we went above our own expectation. This resulted in a better turnout than we could have imagined. Frequent check-ins allowed us to clarify our perception of how the project would go. This would clear up any misunderstandings or misconceptions we had with one another. During the period of time we were losing both communication with the foundation and hope, we would bring each other up by telling one another what is going right on their end. We would also sporadically do our energy squeeze. There's no logical explanation for it, but it always reinforced our sense of team and restored our motivations. I'd say the most difficult of the entire process was changing our plans so frequently. I understood that the only way to follow this project through was to accept the changes that had to take place in our plans. It was still difficult because it usually caused panic among the team, but we always pulled ourselves together.
Now that the project is wrapped up, I realize that all the paperwork and
documents were necessary to carry this out to perfection. I realize that even when times are looking tough, the cause is always worth it, and can affect many more people that one can imagine. I've also realized how many new friendships this service project has resulted in; whether it's with the children or one another. My research and project involved made me more aware that there is always more people whose lives can be improved. It's shown me that no matter how big or small my contribution may be, there is always something I can do or give.
I still see potential in continuation of this social change project. I believe we
can turn this into a club that visits monthly, or a program that happens annually with a larger group of people and children. I don't think these children would mind a little more art here and there.
A word from Mindy Nguyen
A word from Rachel Zakarevicz
The passion behind the mission of project Heal the Heart was fueled by the desire to generate an environment of creativity for children facing the hardship of cancer. I can say that I felt a personal connection to the mission of our project because it stimulated my interest in medicine; but moreover, my participation in this project allowed me to explore and strengthen certain skills that I did not know I had before. As communications correspondent I had the task of initiating the connection with our non-profit and maintaining good relations with our contacts. Probably the most entailing part of my role came at the beginning of our project when I had the job of casting our group’s vision to our non-profit. Nevertheless, my communication skills strengthened as we continued on with our project, and I quickly began to realize the true value behind the work we were doing. Deep in the mission of Heal the Heart, I saw that we were truly working on a “social justice” project because it evoked passion for creativity in a place where this often seems unimaginable.
I will admit, when I first began to correspond with our nonprofit, I was a bit apprehensive. Having the responsibility of representing my whole group, especially for our first impression on our nonprofit, was vital for our project, and I knew I had to do my job well. After successfully exchanging a few emails with our nonprofit contact, I became more confident in my communication skills, and my project group members were became very enthusiastic when I told them about the great replies I was getting from our nonprofit. As our project progressed, it became apparent to our group that we would need to take communication with our nonprofit to the next level in order to assure that our vision aligned with our nonprofit’s vision. I set up a phone call conference to talk about the basic logistics of our project with our nonprofit. Despite these efforts, I still felt like there was some sort of gap between what we saw happening for our project and what our nonprofit envisioned us doing. Thankfully I was able to find a good time to set up an in-person meeting with our nonprofit to, for the first time in our project, meet face-to-face with our contacts. After this meeting, the stress levels on our team seemed to begin to decrease. Knowing the specific details of our vision, thanks to the advice from our nonprofit, finally allowed us to be confident enough in the logistical planning of our project. The goal of mission Heal the Heart never changed; although the specifics of our vision had to change quite a bit.
Our mission’s goal for project Heal the Heart was never about just giving art supplies and crafts to the children at the Texas Children’s Hospital clinic, but rather, we knew right from the start that we wanted our project to extend beyond the level of gift-giving. We wanted to form meaningful companionships with the children we would be working with, and these friendships, I soon realized, were really at the heart of our focus Catholic social teaching, Call to Family, Community, and Participation. I will never forget a very comical and talkative girl I met on the first day at the clinic. The little girl’s mother told me that her daughter was always looking for a friend, and I am happy to say that within the thirty minutes I got to spend time with her, I was able to become hers. After this experience I realized that the Call to Family, Community, and Participation, is more than about helping to build community by doing charitable works, and rather, the core of the teaching is about building connections with others. If our project were to continue, I could see us visiting the Texas Children’s Hospital clinic at least twice a month to build perhaps more long term relationships with the children we were working with. Overall, project Heal the Heart allowed me to put into practice good communication skills and learn that there is nothing better than building real, in-person relationships with someone you are working with--whether it be a nonprofit contact or a child being affected by cancer.
A WORD FROM MaDELINE nOVAK
In my service project, I was one of the budget leads with Bousi. Being a budget lead, I was to help the fundraising team get the supplies that they needed to make baked goods for the bake sale. Then I collected the money they had raised at the bake sale along with the $20 donation from each person in our group to buy the supplies we needed to do our service project at Texas Children’s Hospital.
The practices that I found most relevant and useful to apply were, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enabling others to act, and encourage the heart. These practices were relevant because my team was already using them on a daily basis. The practice that was most difficult to use was model the way because everyone in our group was trying their very best to be the very best that they could be everyday. Model the way is when leaders establish principles concerning the way people should be treated and the way goals should be pursued. The leaders would create a standard of excellence and then set an example for the other people around them to follow. I think it was difficult for my team to use the practice of model the way because we were all leaders and very hard working, so we do not need to see and example and follow it since we were already being an example of a hard working individual.
At first I saw my service project as a fun project to work with young children by doing arts and crafts with them but now I see it as an educational experience that helped me to what it is like to be in the position of the family members of the children in the hospital.
Our service project connects to the Catholic Social Teaching through loved ones and community. In order to connect with loved ones, we make our arts and crafts for people of all ages so that even if they are young kids or young adults, they are able to do what we have planned for our time with them. To connect with the community around the kids, we bring in new information that they want to know as well as bring them cool little toys that they might like from the community around them.
Extensions for the project would be making “No Sew” blankets for the children that are at the hospital waiting because we were unsure of whether the hospital would let us bring them in, we did not make them but if we had had more time to work with Texas Children’s, we would have made them for many children. Another expansion I would have is more times to see the children and to have our time extended so we are not sad to leave when we finally get into the groove of working with the children. I think that this project could be made into a club that could go to Texas Children’s every week so that the children can have some new friends that are not just their for a project, but for the pure enjoyment of getting to know some of the children.
A word from Shea Reid
A word from Caroline Moody
From the beginning our project was a choice. We had to decide what our focus would be on and for us it was healing the hearts of kids with cancer. Clarifying our values and voicing our shared ideals was something that we each had to do in the beginning, and throughout the project. We all got assigned roles based of our personal strengths which is where I was designated responsible for fundraising. I took on this venture with determination of my cooperation in helping my team members. Staying open to any suggestions my team members had for me created this feeling that I was already committed to our project. Being proactive was hard at many times. For me I felt dependent on other prospects of everyone else’s roles. Although I was stuck in my own mind about what I wanted to do, I attempted to articulate my desire for involvement. Gathering our details for where we were to fundraiser didn’t ultimately fall through so I had find other considerations for our plan. Coming up with the trusting idea of selling baked goods at our parents offices sparked its way into my head and fit with the team. After days of selling we came up with a successful amount to finalize everything.
There were five practices we were given to take into consideration as we exemplify our leadership moments. One practice that seemed to especially relevant was Challenge the process. The whole scope of challenge the process is looking outside the box and getting started in small ways. Each of us continually found ways to foster positive changes through our communicating with the organization we were working with or to compare changes that we would have to make. We used our determination at times that seemed hopeless to work harder and cover impossible deadlines. Although things were shaken up at times it allowed us to find ways to create potential ways to avoid conflicts such as those. Innovating new ways to overcome our setbacks helped us encourage continual ways to come up with new ideas.
I’ve realized our social justice effect of helping these kids was based off genuine feelings of wanting to understand and make a change. Social justice isn’t just cornered to be something that takes a wealthy firm of spinners who simply care. It’s the foundation behind the project the people who put their hearts out there confidently.
How did you research & project involvement change the way you view that area of
I realized not everything is as it seems in your head. The things I thought I was personally able to do weren’t rather as liberating as I ultimately thought. I was introduced to a full spectrum of social teachings that were so significant for this experience. Anyone can manifest the kindness in their heart and open them,saves to connecting with other people and so I did. These moments I shared allowed me to learn an observable set of skills and abilities that fostered more motivation with feedback I received from my team members.
When we finally came to the day to meet the kids we each anticipated different things. But in all we wanted to be worth it, we wanted to especially make these kids smile with all of our crafts we had planned for them. The feeling of bringing the slightest amount of joy reminded us how meaningful it was to be there with them. If we were to continue I could see larger and longer moments we could share with the kids.
In Heal the HeART we went to Texas Medical and did Christmas crafts with children with cancer. I was part of the event team and on this team it as my responsibility to organize the detailed plans of what we were going to do with the children in Texas Medical. The whole team participates very evenly and we all went above and beyond our responsibilities, including myself.
I was on the event plan team, there is one other person on the team. It was my responsibility to come up with a detailed plan of what we were going to do. This included coming up with crafts ideas tat fun and simple. We had make a list of all the supplies that we needed for all of our crafts and deliver that list to the budget team to buy. Heal thee HeART went to Texas Medical for two different days, my partner did the first day, December 6th, and I did the the plans for the second day, December 13th. I always tried to be really relaxed while he rest of the team was really stressed and overwhelmed by the project. I contributed also to the team by staying calm during stress and keeping the team level. I brought a sense of realism in the group and tried to help keep their heads on the ground, when things would get to wild.
The five student leadership practices played a big role in our group's success. The practice that I found the most useful was chalet gen the process. The reason the student leadership helped me the most was because it was my job to come up with fun crafts and I looked outside our project a lot to get ideas for crafts. I also had to take the risk that our plans kept on changing due to the delay in information from Periwinkle. The student leadership challenge that gave me the most trouble was Inspire a shared vision because I was not good a putting my thought sin words. Also in the beginning I feared judgment for the older girls in my group so I did not speak up a lot in the beginning, but one we grew closer I learned to say my thoughts more often.
On the first day we went to Texas Medical the head of art in the hospital told us that the art gives the children a time to make decisions for themselves. Since they are sick and doctors and parents are constantly telling them what to d the choice to do the craft and the choice to how to decorate the craft I team lets them feel like the children have control of their lives. When we first started out we were just planning to bring happiness to the children because hospitals can sometimes be depressing, but as our project grew and we learned this peace of information our thoughts changed into gingerbread them control of their lives. We give them the dignity of check that every human has a right to. I could see this becoming a holiday project. So for around every major holiday a group would go to Texas Medical let the children do crafts relating to the holiday. The crafts would become bigger and the gifts that we give them afterwards would become more extravagant.
This whole project had made an impact on my life and the lives of the children we interact with at Texas Medical. I contributed many things to this team, like my planned events and m calming vibes. The opportunity to give these children a feeling of control in their maybe unstable lives of never knowing when the cancer is totally gone. I believe this project is very important to the well being and healing of these kids, who are our future generation.