Wednesday, May 12, 2010
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?
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I did not attend the Mother’s Day tea but I did help out the day before, Wednesday, baking. I arrived at TGP middle way through when the start of the baking commenced. I helped out making the lemon cupcakes and directed Jason on how to mix ingredients together and follow the directions on the box. I assisted Jason in finding the right utensils for pouring the right amount of cupcake batter into their respective holders. After the cupcakes went into the oven, I started on making the glaze for the cupcakes made out of lemon juice, lemon zest, and powdered sugar. The significant part of baking for me was knowing that I was making a treat that many women and possibly classmates would enjoy. It was nice to bake again since I cannot bake in the dorm.
ReplyDeleteI think that I learned how to be patient and work with others when volunteering, at least in the kitchen, because usually when I bake I am alone and working by myself. So that was a lesson learned. As far as our relationship as a community, I think working together at TGP helped a lot of us understand each other more and interact on a different, less informal way that we do in class. As a community with our relationship to TGP, I think that they know now how willing and happy we are to help even with the small deeds.
In preparing for our Mother's Day tea, I worked on the baking crew to plan our the menu as well as buy ingredients and cook/prepare the actual food. But what I want to talk about is my involvement with the actual Mother's Day tea event. A the beginning of this event I was pretty nervous. Everything was going well, tons of mothers were showing up, and the food looked awesome. But when it came to the point where we were to sit down with the clients, I became a bit nervous. First, I didn't know where to sit. I looked around the room and as I was walking, I saw a girl who didn't look much older than myself, sitting next to a baby. Trying to make small talk I told her how cute he was, asked his name, and took a seat next to her. Things became a bit quiet as I struggled to make conversation. I didn't want to use the conversation starters, because I didn't see it as appropriate for just the two of us. But slowly the conversation moved along, talking about food, the weather, her kid, that sort of thing. Then a women sat down across from me and introduced herself as the girls mother. From here I began to learn a lot about the women. They told me about where they were from, how they came to Denver, and bout their family. The baby boy was actually the second child of the girl next to me, and she was surprisingly pregnant with her third. Her oldest was with her fiance, and they plan to be married in July. I found it really interesting when she told me she was a writer herself. She writes children's books for 3-4th graders. We talked about the book she had just finished and how she was going about getting it published. It was interesting, because even though it was obvious how different we were (they asked me about the writing class I was talking) we were able to have an honest, easygoing conversation. I tried to be as honest as possible, and there were times when I felt I had to chose my words wisely. After I told them about the title of our class, Gender and Homelessness, the girls mother (the grandmother, I should say) told me about the difficulties women in particular have being homeless in Denver. She described how there are less overnight shelters for women here, and how there were times when they wouldn't be aloud in because of the boy baby (which I found very surprising). I didn't even think about it before, but this conversation actually applies very well to the research I had done earlier this year for my annotated bibliography where I explored the difficulties homeless mothers have in raising their children. On one hand, I saw this young girl, pregnant with her third child and her mother describing how they came from a very large family (she said she had 25 grandchildren) and I couldn't help but make some kind of judgment in my head. (Why would she have so many kids if she was in such a bad financial state). But at the same time, I could relate to them in many ways. And just as they were being honest with me about where they came from, I wanted to be honest with them about where I was coming from.
ReplyDeleteFor the mother’s day tea I baked, and I attempt to participate in the teatime—but that didn’t work out so well. As part of the baking committee we had a fun shopping trip to buy ingredients for the cookies, cupcakes, and finger sandwiches. In the kitchen I kind of took charge of making the cucumber sandwiches, because it was my idea to make them. I really wanted to make it to the tea, but I was foolish and lent my car to someone else in the morning, then had a really hard time getting the keys from inside her locked room.
ReplyDeleteIf I had been able to make it on time to the tea, that would have been the most significant part for me. However, I learned a lesson about time and resource management with the car.
As a civically engaged person I learned that even small things like baking for an event can improve someone’s day. Often I think in the big picture, and want to make grandiose reforms/contributions.
I think that doing the Mother’s day tea showed the Gathering Place that we weren’t there just to ‘use’ their organization for our class purposes, but that we are concerned with our greater community and the issue of homelessness.
For the Mother’s Day Tea, I was on the decoration committee. I brainstormed with the committee about the supplies and decorations that would make this day really special. We went to the store and bought ribbon, crepe paper, and fabric. I also went to another store and bought candy. We then got together and made little candy bags, approximately 70 of them. I also participated in the baking; I helped make chocolate cupcakes, and washed the dishes for them. I really enjoyed making the little candy bags because it was more than just buying supplies. We cut the fabric and chose the candy, so each little bag would be perfect. I also enjoyed making the banners because like a gift from a kid, they were done by hand, and on them, we put what we thought the women would appreciate. I also enjoyed the baking. Not only was I excited for these women to eat our wonderful treats, but I also enjoyed getting to know everyone on a personal level, hair nets and all. I also could feel gratitude and admiration from TGP staff. I also appreciated the fact that as much as I had enjoyed making these little things, the women would love them ten times more. I truly felt like a little kid bringing home what I had made at school for my mother just because she was wonderful.
ReplyDeleteI signed up to create flyers and attend the event. I scrapped more than 10 possible flyers before the day that they were shown in class. The final one I made up at Tom's Diner between interview sessions at The Gathering Place. I walked there in the rain at around lunch with enough money for coffee.
ReplyDeleteI went with lowercase; all my other drafts were in CAPS LOCK—not very friendly or warm. It was hard for me—I'm a selfish writer, I guess. I hadn't really done any writing for real audiences; I pretend I have an audience, usually one that knows me pretty well.
I wanted to put my research in practice; I wanted to combine the meaning of Mother's Day and the tea event simply.
[I don't have time to finish.]
I was a member of the baking crew for the Mother's day tea. This was a little different for me because in all honesty I do not like cooking, however I really like organizing and planning things, as well as leadership roles, and I figured the baking crew would require the most work. Deciding what to make, how much to make, and how many ingredients we needed to make it turned out to be quite difficult, especially when we weren't sure how many people would show up in the first place. I was very insistent on making more than everybody else said we should. That way the worst that would happen was us college kids would get to take home some fresh baked cookies. When it actually came time to bake, we were for the most part in charge. Considering I had no idea how to actually make the food, I just tried to organize people, made sure they felt like they had things to do and were helping out where it was needed. I also was lucky enough to get to attend the Tea itself, and get to see everyone enjoy our food, which was very fulfilling. Hearing everyone compliment the food, and say how special it made them feel really meant a lot to me, and it made me sure that what we had done was really meaningful. I really got to see the community in action in this environment; both in our class working together to make the food and in seeing all the women from TGP and our class sitting together and enjoying it. It was a really great experience for me.
ReplyDeleteWhen our class went to bake the various foods for the Mother’s Day Tea Party for The Gathering Place, I realized, for one, that I am not as good of a cook as I thought I was, but everyone worked very well together and it was striking how everyone was eager to help, eager to look for a task to do for this event. I think that, through that experience of baking in a kitchen rather than writing in a classroom really strengthened our sense of each other—we were a team, not just some people who happen to be in the same writing class. Similarly, when a few of us actually attended the event, we had the freedom to get to know each other, to mingle, to laugh, to identify as members of the same cause.
ReplyDeleteWhen the party started and the baking ended, many of us became nervous about going out and mingling with the crowd of women we worked so hard for. Despite our stipulations, we journeyed out into the crowd and it turned out to be an amazing experience. I had the pleasure of talking with a woman from Mexico. Her English was a little mottled so we spoke in Spanish—meaning she did most of the talking and I tried as best I could to follow and jump in where I could. Even though I was extremely nervous with the whole situation, it was a truly amazing experience, one that I will never forget.
In preparation for the Mother's Day Tea at TGP, I was able to help out by picking some questions to be asked during the tea and I also had some input in the design of the flyers that were put up in TGP. Because I had to leave school for a while, though, I was unable to fully contribute to that piece. However, on the day before the Mother's Day Tea, I was able to head over to TGP with an early group and help set up for the baking party that was held in the kitchen there. I helped in figuring out recipes, finding the supplies and kitchen tools needed to bake, and figuring out how to use the ovens. Most of the time I was walking around, helping out with different projects. I helped with the chocolate chip cookies as well as trying to figure out how to fix our shortbreak cookie situation and make sure that they were in the oven on time. Along with everyone else, I also feel like I was there for support, mainly comical. Even though I was unable to actually attend the Mother's Day Tea, this project was very fulfilling. I learned that hard work and putting forth this much time like this, especially when it's going to a good cause, makes it all worth it. Knowing that the cookies that I helped to bake were going towards these women is a very rewarding feeling. It was nice to actually put forth our energy and see how it impacted the women rather than working from afar to help. Because I began this class researching on women experiencing homelessness and their parenting, the Mother's Day Tea pertained very much. Though I did not get to see these women, it was good to know that I as well as the rest of the class were able to have an impact on these women/mother's lives. I feel as if working like this as a group brought us closer together because we were able to, as a team, put forth our energy and passion that we've established throughout this quarter and positively affect the lives of these women.
ReplyDeleteI actually wasn’t able to make it to the Mother’s Day Tea, and I really wish that I had been able to. I was, however, able to come to the baking party we had on Wednesday. I was a little late for baking and only had time to help make the cucumber sandwiches and help add the finishing touches to the last of the sweets. The sandwiches were a ton of fun to make. Melina and I ended up mincing garlic cloves with this massive knife; Im surprised we didn’t cut our fingers off actually. Half way through the recipe we realized that we didn’t have any butter (it was all used up in the sweets) and we had to send Devon to the Walgreen to buy some. After we cut the crusts off of the bread to make the sandwiches, Melina and I were eating them and Leslie had to keep reminding us not to take too much of the cucumber spread. It reminded me of my mom, except my hand didn’t get smacked with a spoon. When the butter came we made 20 little sandwiches and cut them all into 4 triangles. They were really, really cute. I ended up stealing once since I was starving to death, and they looked delicious. They were as good as they looked! After spending time baking and preparing the treats for Thursday I was bummed that I was going to be missing the tea; I really wish I had been able to see the TGP ladies enjoying the treats that we had so much fun preparing for them. The baking party really did a great job of bringing together two parts of society that would usually never intersect; the women of TGP and DU college students. It was really great to see college kids donating their time to recognize these ladies, and it really helped to form a bond with our class. We got to know each other a lot better and became more of a close knit group than just a class.
ReplyDeleteI as well as three of my other group members searched for decorations to display for the women on the Mother's Day Tea. Our goal was to buy what we needed at low prices, but a part of me thought we should indulge for the ladies and buy the best we could afford. However, we thought it was best to shop this way plus it was not our money we were spending. I drove the group around Denver first to Hobby Lobby, which was closed becasue it was a Sunday, and then we ventured of to a Dollar Tree which was helpful. After that we went to a shop that specialized in clothe, and since we were planning on making small clothe bags filled with candy this was the store to be at. We then returned to Du and made the bags as well as the posters for the Mother's Day Tea.
ReplyDeleteAs a class we all went to The Gathering Place to prepare small finger foods, as well as deserts for the ladies. I was a part of the "cookie crew", and we spent about an hour sharing the kitchen space with the class as we completed our part of the baking day. I was nervous as to how well the cookies would turn our, because I hoped this day would be a great day for the ladies. I learned that when it comes to helping others, helping in "unmasculine" ways does not show any sign of weakness, in fact is says the complete opposite. I felt proud to be in the kitchen to help preare this special day for the women of The Gatherin Place.
Unfortunately I was unable to come to Mother’s Day tea or help with the set up because of some personal family problems. However I was not completely disconnected with the process. I participated in the section where we were trying to find questions to put into the question bowl so that good discussion instead of silence prevailed. While in class I worked with two of my classmates. They already had about ten questions when we began but that was obviously not enough. I tried very hard to find questions and actually provided a good number of the following ten or twelve. Some question I thought of were a little too philosophical and my teammates would not allow them to be in the bowl. However some of my questions were accepted. An example of one of these was the question about if people had one million dollars what would they do first. Another question I came up with was what kind of superpower they would have if it was possible. I am very sorry that I could not make it but I hope you see that I participated at least a little.
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