September/6 Today I made a connection for my capstone projects. I spoke to my barber and he said he would be willing to help me with my capstone by having a day where he would give homeless people haircuts. He said it would have to be a day that the barbershop is supposed to be closed like a Sunday or a Monday.
September/7 I touched base with ms. bout about the homeless people and the things I wanted to do with them and she likes where I am heading with it. She gave me great advice about where to go who i should be looking to call and what times i should be planning these events. It had totally slipped my mind that the homeless shelters had a time people were supposed to be in the rooms by getting ready for bed. With that being said i would have to try and keep all my events before 4 o'clock so they can enjoy the event and still have time to get to the homeless shelter.
September/9 I am speaking with my mothers pastor to try and set up a date to sit down and speak to her about her becoming my mentor. She will be a great asset to me not only because she runs the church so she will let me host the two dinners for my capstone but because she is trying to do an outreach to the homeless people so that she could have a role in our community as well.
September/10 The pastor at my mother's church wants to sit down and have a meeting with me so we could get started but i realized that she could not only be my mentor but for the two dinners I plan to have she could also be my site supervisor. I plan to host a dinner on thanksgiving and on Christmas at the church. She thinks it is great idea but she wants me to do more and touch more people which is what I was hoping my mentor would drive me to do but i do not know where to even look. I think I want to speak to another capstone group and do a sort of collaboration. I want to have my foot drive and my haircuts incorporated with theirs. If they could had out fliers while they are serving food for haircuts so they could at least have notice that I will be hosting a event as such would be a great help.
September 14 I had a meeting with Tito's star barbershop and he said that it was okay with them but they wanna do something more like have a cookout for them so grilling hot dogs and hamburgers for them. I would have to figure out if i need a permit and how much it would cost not even mentioning if i have to go through the food pantry. I want to help the barbershop by having the news or a section in the news article about them doing this for homeless people.
September 15 I found out that if I do anything with homeless it would have to be earlier in the day because the shelters times all open at 6. I am hoping to do the haircut day on the 18th of November so they could have a haircut for the thanksgiving dinner but I have to find out more about how to feed them. I hope to collaborate with another capstone who is trying to help and get clothing for homeless so either at the dinner or at the haircut they can give away clothes.
September 25 I have seen people like Vincent,Jayne, and a few others that are trying to do homeless work. I feel we could come together not only as seniors but as people in the Hartford community and really make a impact on them. I know i have the haircuts and have the two dinners lined up but i know that if I had someone who had clothing and food drives lined up at my events we could give them out and we could do a collaboration. It could go to both of our hours and we could help each other out with different drives.
September 29 I have been looking into clothing that is most necessary for homeless that is least given and sock along with others such as underwear bras and clothing that is gender/ size specific are least given. I would want to talk to my mentor about what we could do for things like that because through the clothing drives we will have clothing that anybody could wear but things like socks and underwear I would want to see if money could go towards these things.
October 2 I had a meeting with the barbershop, I spoke with the owner and touched base with the other barbers that work there to see if everybody was on board with the haircuts for the homeless day. They love the idea but they asked that if I was going to be going to them that I should mention that their hair has to be clean and that if they come with lice or scabies that they cannot cut their hair. So he said to try and find a way to advise them their hair needs to be clean.
October 8 I had a conference with my mentors about the upcoming events. They are more involved than i expected, they were planning on doing events with the church around December for a outreach program the church does every year. I spoke to the about the haircuts for the homeless and i spoke about the dinners that i wanted to host. They gave me feedback saying that the haircuts day should be bigger so adding a way to give them food such as grilling burgers and hot dogs along with chips and water would be nice. They mentioned that if we did the food and the haircuts it wouldn't necessarily need a Thanksgiving dinner with it i should must take the time to focus on the Christmas dinner.
October 11 I have spoke to my mentor and we are trying to find a way to meet at least once every week. we have spoken to a printing company and our trying to find a way to have them printing out the fliers for the haircuts for the homeless day. My mentor said we can work on their flier and he has been doing fliers for the church events for years now and that he would help me finish mine. He said one thing we would probably need to do is say that they sponsored the fliers.
October 22 I went and had a meeting with a my mentor about the speech I am suppose to give that Sunday. They asked that I go up in front of the church that Sunday and speak to the church about the plans i have in store for the community and how i am working my capstone through the church.
October 27 Spend about a hour or hour and a half working through the speech fixing any errors before the big day, having my house listen to me over and over again but also re wording it a bunch of times so the way I came off to their church was not so much desperately asking for help but more of them joining me in this movement to help as many as we could.
October 28 I woke up at 8 in the morning to get ready for my speech at 10;30 in the morning at the lighthouse tabernacle church Sunday service.by my surprise i they had a guest pastor there from Chicago Illinois and he was amazed at the things we have done so far and the things that are to come. I went up to the front of the church in the middle of the service when my mentor/pastor called me up to give my speech. I got the altar and it was like I almost choked, the church is not huge but when your standing behind the altar in front of people you don't know so well i was nervous and it never happens. I worked at the science center where i talked to people all day in groups of 50-100 and i never got lost for words like I did that day.I went on to tell them how much of a impact we can have as a group who is solely focused on making a change in our community and they couldn't agree more.The speech went well and after the service was done I have large groups of people asking me how they could help and for exact information about the day so that they could help either with handing out food on the day or by donating money for food.
November 15 I had a meeting with the barbers and spoke to them about all the things we should expect and what we should all be doing. We came to an agreement that we should just keep the barbers cutting hair the whole time and have me facilitating everything so that they would only have to worry about one thing.
November 17 My mentor and I woke up early and handed out fliers a bunch of homeless shelters in Hartford such as st Elizabeth's shelter, south park inn, mercy house,McKinney shelter,etc. We handed out a couple hundred fliers that morning and were talking to so many people trying to spread the word for the next day.
November 18 The haircuts for the homeless couldn't have went better!!!Me and my barber got to the shop around 9 that morning to sanitize and clean the barbershop for the people who were coming. Me and gabby were talking about what to expect how to treat these people and how to go about certain situations such as a fire or if someone had lice.The people from the church got the the barbershop around 10 that morning to help set up chairs and tables for people to eat and wait for a haircut.My mentor brought in boxes of pizza while others followed with drinks and deserts for the people getting haircuts. At the beginning of the day when everything was all set up a few people were lined up for us for haircuts.It started off smooth but then people stopped coming and I pulled my mentor to the side.He told me he was anticipating this because a lot of the people who want the help don't want to do a little work to get it. But he surprised me with what's next. He brought up how blessed we were and how we should use that to help others so he grabbed everybody who volunteer and spoke to the about going to pick the homeless people up from the shelter they were staying at.By my surprise they all agreed but i took on a crazy task of finding the homeless people. I began calling all the homeless shelters we had visited the day before hoping they remembered me and what i spoke to them about. Many of them did and a few were new shelters but they were excited someone was doing a event like this and they were surprised i had people who were willing to pick these people up and bring them back to the shelter.I went on to write down 2 or 3 persons names on a paper with the address and the phone number so someone could go there and pick them up.Mind you they went and picked random people up in their own personal car and it was crazy to see who exactly was driving because by some chance it was the most conversational people in the whole church.From then on it became a revolving door the church members came back with people and I had another paper waiting for them when they came back to go get someone else.the day went great and once we started that pick up and drop off process the day went smooth having over 30 people get food and haircuts that day and people safely getting dropped off back in the shelter.
November 21 I started on the clothing drive for the homeless. So far we know that we will be serving food at st Elizabeth's church in Hartford for the middle of the day. They have not said how many people will be attending but i have news that there is residence and then they also feed the people who just are really out on the streets.
December 6 Me and my mentor along with his wife were on the phone for a while touching base about what to expect this Saturday with so many people showing up and what time I should be there to start getting prepared. We were informed that we were scheduled to serve not only the residence of the homeless shelter but the homeless people outside too. This all together should be around 125 people who will show up for food.
December 8 The day went AMAZING. We had a total of 25 volunteers come help us the majority was people who attend my mentors church but we had some friends of friends and some of the members children helping out too. It all started at around 8:25 when i went to the church to go and help them. Mind you i was working 9 days straight then my 2 off days for the week were to have a fundraising event for the travelers club then the next day was to feed homeless people. I went into the church with life sucked out of me but the ambition to feed as many people as i possible could that day. When i got in i seen a whole bunch of volunteers already working on cutting up lettuce and tomatoes for the tacos we were going to be serving. I went on to find the kitchen where I was informed that we were feeding 125 people instead of around 80 so I was shocked but it was kinda heartwarming to find out that there were more people we could help in the community. I went and started cooking the chicken and ground beef because we had to stir 50 POUNDS of each. We were there for a good hour or two trying to cook all this meat on the small electrical stove in the church kitchen right down the hall from where my mentor preaches. Then out of nowhere the stove shuts off and the meat stops cooking and at this point we have a good half a hour before we have to be at the homeless shelter feeding all these people so we were in disbelief. I have said it to the before and I will say it again I WILL NEVER DOUBT MY MENTORS. I was looking at them switching the breaker on and off in the kitchen to see if it would help and i told them i guess we will have to reschedule on them. My mentor turn and said “no not that easy we have someone close by who we could cook at their house” she went on to hand me some oven mitts and proceeded to the door after I grabbed the huge pot filled with hamburger meat and taco seasoning. He began to start running after we walked out the door and I didn't understand why because i thought we were just getting into the car but no he ran to the gate and opened it for me. I was running right behind him and asked where we were going and he said right there. I cannot make this story up what is the chances the person he was mentioning live literally next to the church like if the church was #4 on the street this house was #2 they were neighbors. I ran behind her and she ran up the the house and opened the door where 3 little boys were running around with no shirts and a diaper just like and little kids would at 10 in the morning. I went into the kitchen and placed the pot on their stove and began to cook the meat and check how much time we had left till we had to go. With 25 minutes till departure i didn't even realize how awkward my situation was, I was in a women house that i did not know with three kids i never met at 10 in the morning with a huge pot of taco meat to feed homeless people in 25 minutes.my mentor and her talked and i had seen her at church the one or two times i attended but we never formally met she just knew what i was doing was for a good cause. We went on to cook the meat and bring it in time for us to split the 25 volunteers between the crazy side filled with people running in and getting food then soon jetting out to catch the next bus. The people I was with on the crazy side were very calm and handled it very well but i knew I had to nail one thing. I was told to just run one side and I had the choice but since it was my project I wanted the biggest challenges they could offer so I took the harder side but i knew i had to explain everybody's role on my team clear and concise or else I would lose these people and we would be swapped trying to make these meals for them. But we nailed it and I often heard “ for a kid he has his head on right” and “for someone that young you could see the leadership potential”. I was proud to hear that from adults and from people who have lived their life and is watching someone trying to do better for others in there's. It was a huge success and I am thankful for everybody's help during this journey in my capstone. My mentor and it talked and he was proud that someone who is 17 can lead how i did and run with a idea in his head how I did.
December 10 This night I had a event for the travelers club which is small talk is a vacation with people from school.we had a movie night for the middle schools students to raise money for the trip I will be going on in April.I had previously spoken to Ms. Bout about leaving her door open so I could grab all the clothes from her room when the event was over. that night I was in the school till about 9:30 with the janitors taking about 20-30 bags of clothes from the clothing drive. My cousins husband and I spent about 20 minutes trying to fit all the bags in the back seats and trunk in a way so he could still safely drive the car. That same night when I walked in the house with all the bags me and my mom spoke and she was proud of everything I was doing.Me and her spent at least a hour or two exasperating all the clothes by size and gender to put in bags for the dinner and the salvation army.
December 15 After everything was done the shelters only were taking new clothing because they had revived so many donation due to season of giving. We went on to bring it the salvation army but what we didn't realize they really only took clothing that they could resell or that people would want to purchase so they left us with a lot of the kids and women clothing. So me and my old man went on to bringing the clothes to donation bins around Hartford because there was not a lot of places that took those particular clothing. The outcome was overall good from what I saw the clothes that were good were going to be sold to help homeless people and the ones we brought to donation bins were going to be given away to people who really needed it.
March 5 I have spoken to my mentor about the upcoming grow group activities that will be taking place which the first will be a homeless dinner held on march 9th at the homeless shelter. They have said that they will be cooking everything at the homeless shelter so the same problem doesn't happen again.I was excited to be cooking in the new area but i feel we needed to have that mishap in the church for me to gain the faith i did in my mentors. through this project I realized a really big purpose of helping people out of the goodness of your heart and how far my mentors were willing to go to help me assist the homeless through my project.
March 9th The dinner went great! We all showed up at 8:30 and we started at the beginning by cutting and cleaning the chicken while others went ahead and started cooking green beans and baked mac and cheese . I cleaned and cut about 100 pounds of chicken with two other young men in the church who also wanted to help make a difference in the community. We were cooking from 8:30 in the morning to around 12 that afternoon.The food was being cooked by the sisters in the church while the guys cleaned after the mess by doing dishes and wiping down the cold steel tables.The dinner went really good and for us to have had problems such as the oven not working fast enough which made up grill the chicken,we did very good for the showing of 100 plus people all together. I went on to grab a team of guys and serve in the crazier side of the shelter (the side where people from the streets can come in and get a meal. The two teenagers who were helping had mixed emotions about helping these homeless people, I kept the same focus i did when i started capstone which was they need more help than anybody else i know so i'm going to do all that i can to help them. One of the teenagers was s happy with what he did and he was excited to say that what started as a speech and turned into cooking in the kitchen for 4 log hours lead to helping people from the goodness of your heart. He went on to ask me if i was going to collaborate on the next one and if we were going to host something similar anytime soon which has kind of turned to a tradition with me and the church. The other young adult didn't really want to be to be there and went on to say how he was tired and hungry. I tried to explain what the other guy and I were talking about but i could tell he missed out on the experience because he was more worried about how people were going to see him feeding homeless people and what else he could be doing.It was sad but it really showed me how people really will be in this world,some people have too much pride to serve while others wish to serve the people who need it the most.