I work as the Operations Coordinator in the school’s Corporate Internship Program. This program has the students working one day a week at a corporation in the Portland area, whereby the students gain work experience, learn to navigate the corporate environment and receive a tuition subsidy from those companies. My job is to manage transportation, payroll, job training/shadowing and provide support for newly hired / fired students. Translation: I act as a human resources director at a temporary employment agency for high school students.
Why did you choose to become a Lasallian Volunteer? Have your hopes about the Program been realized?
I became a Lasallian Volunteer because I wanted to help students who came from backgrounds less fortunate than my own. I grew up in a middle class family and had pretty much everything going in my favor: loving parents, a stable family environment, motivated friends, a great education, never having to worry about money…essentially there were no reasons I shouldn’t have been able to succeed. Since I was fortunate enough to have all of these support systems in my life, I felt the least I could do is try and help those who weren’t lucky enough to be born into a situation such as mine. I wanted to be there for students when they wouldn’t normally have someone that could step up and help support them. Have my hopes been realized? I’d like to think that I’ve made a difference in the lives of my students, not just by helping them be reliable and productive employees but also by being someone who they can look up to and trust. I hope they see that when I’m there chaperoning a dance, volunteering to shuttle sports teams to games, or making a fool of myself learning how to dance like Beyonce in the halls, I’m trying to make myself accessible, approachable and be someone they can trust to be there for them. If nothing else, I’ve helped boost their self-esteem by giving them someone to laugh at!
What is the most important “thing,” do you think, that your students need from you? What do you do to try to provide this?
I believe more than anything else that my students just need to know that somebody genuinely cares about and respects them. However this often means different things for different students. Some students need someone to just sit and listen as they talk through their problems at home and at school. For others it’s being held accountable when they mess up and letting them know ‘I expect more out of you because I care about you and know you can do better.’ Then to that same student I have to show leniency the next time they screw up because I know they’re consciously making an effort but can’t come through every time. It takes time learning enough about a student to know how to best act in each situation, which often comes through trial and error. The most important part comes when I do lose patience with a student and I go back, apologize and admit I was wrong. This opens the conversation about how we both could have acted differently and responded better, which shows them that I really respect their thoughts and opinions. That is the level of maturity I would expect between two adults and I believe they recognize and appreciate that expectation.
What have you discovered about poverty from your work?
I used to think that someone who was impoverished simply didn’t have enough money to take care of all his or her basic needs. While that statement is true, I never really thought of what it would mean to not have enough money for food/shelter and the ways that it would affect a person. It means when a student is sick they can’t afford to go to a doctor so they go to work sick; because they are sick they have a hard time focusing and can’t perform well on the job; when they don’t perform well they receive bad reviews which puts them in danger getting fired. Then if something else unexpected arises, they’ve already used up the their employers goodwill and could lose their job. Seeing things which never would have been an issue in my own family growing up, like getting sick or having to pay to replace a dead car battery, and how that could threaten the financial security of those living in poverty, has really opened my eyes.
There are a fair amount of students at De La Salle North Catholic who live in poverty and it often directly affects their school life. We expect all students to be in dress code both school and work days, but oftentimes these students show up without their required dress shirts. After having this occur several times I realized that with the dress shirts costing $40 they couldn’t afford more than two shirts, which wouldn’t last them through the week. More often than not, if they couldn’t afford more than 2-3 shirts that meant they didn’t own a washer and dryer and couldn’t easily wash their shirts once they got dirty. So here I was faced with a real world example of how “small” issues could snowball for those who were always on the edge financially. For me it was difficult at first not to give a pass to those students whom I knew were struggling financially, because I knew many of the problems were brought about by situations out of their control. Yet by bending the rules I wasn’t preparing them for life outside of the school where employers don’t want excuses and sympathy isn’t readily available.
The way I’ve tried to address both arguments is that when a student is faced with an issue (for example not having a dress shirt), that they are proactive and make a good faith effort to obey the rules by seeing if we have any extra shirts, asking for a modified dress code, etc. This hopefully helps them head off other issues like this which are bound to happen in the future by understanding what is a necessary and mature way of addressing their disadvantage. I have learned so much about resourcefulness, perseverance and optimism from my students, it is truly incredible what they are able to overcome and achieve on a daily basis.
Why would you recommend the LV program to a college senior considering volunteering?
I would recommend the program because not only is it an incredibly effective way to directly assist those who have the greatest need, but it also gives you an incredible opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. When you are forced to move outside of your comfort zone, whether it’s away from home or in a cultural environment you’re unfamiliar with, it really shows you what a patient, mature, understanding, flexible, etc. person you really are.
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What do you do?
There are a fair amount of students at De La Salle North Catholic who live in poverty and it often directly affects their school life. We expect all students to be in dress code both school and work days, but oftentimes these students show up without their required dress shirts. After having this occur several times I realized that with the dress shirts costing $40 they couldn’t afford more than two shirts, which wouldn’t last them through the week. More often than not, if they couldn’t afford more than 2-3 shirts that meant they didn’t own a washer and dryer and couldn’t easily wash their shirts once they got dirty. So here I was faced with a real world example of how “small” issues could snowball for those who were always on the edge financially. For me it was difficult at first not to give a pass to those students whom I knew were struggling financially, because I knew many of the problems were brought about by situations out of their control. Yet by bending the rules I wasn’t preparing them for life outside of the school where employers don’t want excuses and sympathy isn’t readily available. 