MLK Jr Service Day

MLK Jr Day is one of Americorps' recognized holidays, so I was supposed to have it off, but it also happens to be one of Americorps' mandatory days of service, so I had to work anyway.

Our last service day was Sept. 11. We went to a church in the Linden neighborhood of Columbus and painted rooms in a convent being turned into a transitional housing facility.




Painting was fun - a nice change from indirect service to direct service, getting dirty and doing something with my hands for the day.

But I digress.

MLK Jr. Day was spent at an event at the University of Toledo. There were speakers and local high school choirs, H1N1 shots and a community service fair, which is where we VISTAs spent the day behind a table.

I got an H1N1 shot. Up the nose, which I wasn't thrilled about but it was actually genius. It was like nothing happened. Barely felt it and no stiff shot arm for the rest of the day.

The picture at the top was taken with my cell phone. First time I've tried to upload a cell phone pic.

For missing out on our holiday, we got to sub out another day of the week, so fellow VISTA Maureen and I took Friday to create another three-day weekend of our own. Yay!

Recent happenings

I have been forgetting to take my camera ANYwhere this past month so these next few "catch-up" posts are going to be sadly devoid of art.

Recent happenings:

-Fellow VISTA Maureen and I have joined the Hunger Task Force! Don't you love it? A task force. I feel like a superhero.

-Lately, I feel like I've gotten some good leads from a couple of sites following Ohio Benefit Bank presentations: Maumee Valley Habitat for Humanity, a substance abuse treatment center called Fresh Attitudes, and Washington Local School District.

I'm especially excited about the possibility of Washington Local becoming an OBB site because that could have especially far-reaching consequences for the community. I met one of their high school social workers at a community resource fair. We met with her and a school administrator and they plan to start with the one social worker at the high school and see how it works within the system. If it works, it could go into all the junior highs and elementaries as well. yay!

- I had a somewhat stressful training a couple weeks ago. Something came up and the place it was originally set to be held had to retract the room space after I'd already had people sign up for the class. So I had to find a new location to train.

Luckily I found a place easy enough, but that had its own problems. The morning of the class, I had trouble with the computer passwords. The lab they wanted me to use wouldn't let me on the Internet no matter which password I tried to enter.

So we moved to another computer lab.

Which was good because more people showed up than had registered, so they wouldn't have all fit in the other lab anyway, which would have been cramped enough with just the number who were supposed to be there.

However, once we started up the class, we ran into some technical difficulties. Basically, the OBB software wouldn't let us past one of the first screen. I called the help desk but it's apparently some kind of glitch they encounter occassionally that they can't do anything about.

He said the only thing we could try was to log out and log back in again, but that didn't work. Or we could try creating a whole new client and starting over. I was loathe to try that solution, because as any community trainer can attest to, logging in is the most timeconsuming and confusing part of the training for new counselors. And some of the people in the class were slow with computers. It had taken them long enough the first time, so I was groaning inside.

But we tried it anyway and it didn't work. One guy, who seemed to be easily annoyed, was getting kind of annoyed and wanting to come back to a different training day.

I don't know if it was something about those computers or what (I'd never trained there before) or just an occasional glitch that could have happened anywhere, but I'd never had that happen before.

Finally I just had them all double up with another person because a few of them had gotten through for some reason. So instead of one scenario by themselves and one with a partner, we did both scenarios with partners.

It all ended up OK and most people were patient, but it wasn't the most fun training ever.

Myth of the Welfare Queen

The New York Times recently published this story about the spike in the number of families applying for food stamps who have no income at all.

(I pilfered this from the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks blog. Thanks!)

I'd say that is true for many of the people I come across. Not many are making more than $400/mo. Most have a couple of kids and something like $100 in the bank. I don't know how some of them do it.

Along those same lines, I just started reading a book called "Myth of the Welfare Queen," kindly loaned to me by fellow VISTA Maureen.



It's written by a journalist who followed a couple of welfare families in North Philadelphia for six months in 1995 just prior to the inaction of Clinton's 1996 welfare reform.

I'm probably biased, but I usually enjoy books written by journalists. They know how to research thoroughly, write concisely and hook readers fast.

So far so good. I'll keep you posted.

Catch-up

It's been a long time since I posted. Residual holiday laziness I guess.

Here's a quick rundown of what I've been up to:




Got a sweet jacket from work.




Worked a community resource fair at Whitmer High School with fellow VISTA Andrea. The school's first, but one of the best planned and successful I've been to yet. Kudos Whitmer!

Went to the Monthly Reentry Resource Meeting, talking to ex-offenders and their families about services available in the community. It might be our last one for a while as tax clinics will soon wreak havoc with that schedule...boo...

Attened a monthly Citizen Circle, a support/discussion group for ex-offenders and their families. Unfortunately the weather was crappy, so not many people showed up. However, fellow VISTA Maureen and I did get free pizza and work-paid chat time.



Went to the Rose Bowl!




FINALLY got business cards -- but an important word was spelled wrong (Toledo)...

Back to square one.

Green Christmas, Somber Story

I spent my first Christmas in Ohio with my family in three years, yay! Unlike the previous years in South Dakota, this one was green and rainy. Which doesn't really feel like Christmas. But, I have to say, no blizzards, wind, drifts, subzero temps and unplowed roads did reduce the headache factor a great deal.

A sad story though.

I worked a half day on Christmas Eve and heard that someone had called in looking for a leftover food basket. I guess someone had told them we sometimes had extras if they waited until right before Christmas to call.

But we don't give out food baskets at all, so we had to tell her that. And she started crying on the phone.

Heartbreaking.

Homeless Persons' Memorial Day

As soon as I got home from the VISTA meeting in Findlay on Monday, I dropped off my stuff, jumped in my car and drove across town to a gorgeous, huge, old stone church, where 1Matters.org, the local group that puts on Tent City, was leading a memorial service to recognize all those who had died homeless or otherwise unseen by society as a whole.

Candles were lit as friends read the names of those who had died, whether from cold, illness, overdose, homicide, suicide, etc., many perhaps noted in passing by the general public (if at all) only for the way they died and then quickly forgotten again.

Also honored was an older local woman who recently died. She was the founder and director of St. Paul's Community Center and spent her life working with unhoused and destitute men.

National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day was started in 1990 by the National Coalition for the Homeless. It is held on each year on Dec 21, the first day of winter, the longest night of the year. Last year, 120 cities held events to honor the more than 3,200 people who died unhoused during the year.

INFJ

Idealist/Counselor/Teacher

That's me.

At least according to the personality tests and leadership style exercises I did recently.

Monday was one of those perfectly busy days that are full and yet not taxing. All my fellow Northwest Ohio VISTAs met in Findlay for our quarterly meeting.

The most interesting part was talking about personality types and leadership styles.

For personality types, we all took the Myers-Briggs Personality Test. I came out an INFJ, which did seem pretty accurate.

The first letter, E or I, refers to the source of the person's energy (not necessarily how outgoing the person is) -- extroversion (E) for those who need to talk things through and introversion (I) for those who need to think things through.

The second letter, N or S, refers to how the person receives information -- Intuition (N) means the person can see the big picture and future possibilities while Sensing (S) means the person tends to trust the establishiment and the tried and true.

The third letter, F or T, refers to how the person makes decisions -- feeling (F) for those who consider others before making decisions and thinking (T) for those who use the logical choice.

The last letter, P or J, refers to the person's personal life -- percieving (P) for those who are flexible and enjoy surprises and changing plans, and judging (J) for people who like structure, routines and to-do lists.

I'm pretty strong to the one side in my first two letters, but the last two -- although they always stayed the same each time I've taken this test -- are closer to the line between the two so I'm probably more in the middle on those, especially the last one.

We also talked about leadership styles and divided ourselves into North, South, East and West styles.

North people are assertive, quick deciders and focused on the bottom line. South are supportive, nurturing compromisers, sometimes to the point of valuing the needs and wants of others above their own. East are visionaries who see the big picture or future possibilities and like to experiment and take risks. West people are careful and objective, weighing details and all sides to an issue before moving forward.

We each chose primary and secondary leaderships styles and then talked about the strengths and weaknesses of each, how to work best with each type of person and why each type is necessary and plays an important role in getting things done.

I identifed as a West person primarily and South secondarily. Interestingly, several people said they didn't see me as a West person. So I don't know if they don't know me or if I don't know myself or if I'm somehow projecting a different style than I really am.

This quiz I found later puts me as East, followed by West, South and North. I suppose most people have bits of each. I know I have parts of West, South and East -- but not really North. I don't see much of that one in me at all. Who knows.

An interesting activity was planning a mock vacation with our fellow types. The South person drew a picture of mountains. The Wests also drew a picture, a map of the U.S. for our random camping roadtrip -- with a specific destination (Mexico). And the Norths had no pictures, but a detailed itinerary of their European vacation -- what they were doing, when and where. (There were no East people in our group.)

We also talked about volunteer recruitment, conflict management and resume writing. Plus, we ate pizza and delicious brownies, and had a fun holiday white elephant gift exchange.

Long day, but enjoyable overall.