Field Notes from Project Homeless Connect

After you finish your volunteer shift at Project Homeless Connect, record your observations from your experience here as a comment. Record everything you remember from your day and include as many details as you can. Be as descriptive as possible. As you conclude, reflect on what was significant about your experience.

IMPORTANT: Please do not use people’s real names. Use initials or pseudonyms. We want to preserve the anonymity of the people you interacted with.

Preparing for Project Homeless Connect

As you prepare for Project Homeless Connect, reflect on your expectations for Saturday’s event. What do you think the day will be like? What do expect to learn? What have you already learned about homelessness or poverty that you think prepares you for volunteering? What did you learn from the volunteer training session? From our experiences thus far at The Gathering Place? If you’re feeling any anxiety, apprehension, or nervousness about the day, please reflect on these feelings, too. Why do you think you feel that way?

Reflecting on Writing for The Gathering Place Project

After you turn in your piece for The Gathering Place, I’d like you to reflect on what it was like to complete this assignment. First, tell us about what it was like to conduct the research for this piece of writing. What did you learn about homelessness, poverty, or The Gathering Place from your interviews that you wouldn’t or couldn’t have learned from a text? Second, what was it like to use these interviews to tell someone’s story and generate an impression about The Gathering Place? How did you grow as a writer? Last, what was it like writing for this non-profit organization? What did you enjoy or find challenging about putting yourself in service to TGP in this way?

Reflecting on the Mother’s Day Tea

Before we do our peer-review workshop on your pieces for The Gathering Place, I’d like you to take a few minutes and reflect on your involvement with The Mother’s Day Tea. First, describe what you did to help out with this event—be as detailed as you can—and then reflect on what was significant for you. What did you learn about yourself as a student or as a volunteer or as a civically engaged person by completing this project? How did working on this event relate to your earlier research or our current writing project? How did it contribute to our relationship with this community organization, as well as to our community as a class?