November Update

Hello! This is the third and final installment for our Summit project's first semester class. We have a lot more to update you on because we finally got to do some hours with our community partner.

(Just a refresher-- we switched community partners from Jordan Valley to Harmony House in November due to communication issues)

Megan had already completed one Harmony House event with our now-combined group before we became a combined group, however, this was Gabby and Taylor's first time working with Harmony House.

Our group, along with our fellow Summit partners Mariah, Victoria, and Christina, hosted a movie night at Harmony House on November 10. Gabby and Megan stayed with the adults, talked with them, and watched the movie "The Help." The rest of the group provided childcare so that the moms could relax and enjoy the movie. We had a good amount of women turn out and it was really encouraging to see them be so open to us. A lot of the women just wanted someone to listen to and talk with, and we were able to provide that for a few hours on a Friday night. The children also just wanted a "buddy" to hang out with, someone who got their undivided attention. At the end of the night we all left feeling more connected with Harmony House.

So overall we would say that our first event as a combined group was pretty successful.

But that doesn't mean we didn't have challenges going into this month of our project. Before our November Summit class I think it was safe to say that we were all a little nervous as to has to how we were going to complete our hours. Many of us had limited hours and we were nervous about the December deadline. Once we had the time during class to flesh out our plan for the remainder of the semester we realized that we could get in our 15 hours without worry (we did get an extension until December 8 because that is when our last Harmony House event is).

What we learned from this past month is the importance of working together and communicating to accomplish our project. We are applying the lessons we learned by planning out our entire next semester's service projects over winter break. This is going to help us significantly for the spring because we will already have the dates set and ready for us to go serve.

Merging groups last minute was a bit difficult but now we understand how we work together and the roles we have in the project.