Wolves On the Prowl: Community Service Project

On Saturday November 8, 2008 I attended Wolves on the Prowl, which is a community service project held at Loyola University. Loyola University has been participating in this community service project for I believe the last 12 years. It is a service project in which many different organizations participate with Loyola University and Loyola provides students and faculty to help the different causes. Some of the different organizations include working with children of lower income families, picking up and cleaning parks, and visiting the elderly community. Loyola University gathers all the volunteers in front of the Monroe Library and distributes muffins and cold drinks while the volunteers fill out the appropriate paper work and receive their free t-shirt. After about a couple minutes waiting for everyone to arrive, the coordinator gathers everyone together and he gives a brief summary of the project and explains the basics of the day. The volunteers were to separate into different groups depending on which organization they wanted to contribute to, and then from there they would load the buses and be bused to the designated area. After all the work was done for the day the volunteers would be bused back to Loyola University. Wolves on the Prowl began at 8 am and finished around 12:30 pm.
I personally chose to work with the children from the school Good Shepherd for the lower income families. We were not bused anywhere because we were hosting the kids and providing them with a fun field day. The children arrived around 9:30 am and you could just see the excitement in their faces. Their teachers gathered the volunteers and the children together and gave a brief summary as to what the school was and how some of their faculty had attended Loyola University. The volunteers had previously separated into four different groups, each with a different color to distinguish themselves. The four teams were blue, green, red, and yellow; I was on the yellow team. The children were separated almost evenly and we got ready to start our first activity. The first game we played was walking to a cone, then around it, while holding a ball in a spoon and not letting it drop. Next, we played dizzy, where you run to the bat and spin around five times then run back before the next member of your team can advance. Third, we played tug-a-war. After each game, points were assigned to the teams depending on how quickly they finished. Needless to say, the yellow team won! Working with these kids was a wonderful experience and it made me realize how blessed I am and that it is important to give back to those less fortunate, because sometimes the smallest gestures make the biggest differences.
After further research I found a great organization called First Book Greater New Orleans, which combats the literacy crisis in New Orleans affecting the lower income families. Their mission is to provide new books to those children who are in need. One of the greatest contributors to literacy is the limited access to books by these families. First Book Greater New Orleans has distributed over 60 million free or low cost books to disadvantaged families and to other programs which serve them.