December 1, 2012

Going into the event on December 1st, I worried that we would either not make enough money to be able to start donating to the Polish Home Hall, or that we would only be able to donate a couple hundred bucks which seemed to me like such a small amount that it would not have been worth our effort to put together the event in the way that we did. I was incredibly surprised at the outcome of the event, so many people showed up even for just a few minutes.

I was "stuck" at the children's table, which became very disappointing when we were only able to entertain six or seven children. Even then, Professor Bradley's art students were able to be more engaged with the children as they had face painting set up at one end of the table while the American Studies students had our "I am proud of. . . " board at the other end. I had not realized that the art students would also be helping out at the children's table so my ideas for our activities were limited to what an American Studies major can accomplish with children rather than what AMST and Art majors can accomplish with students. Thankfully, Professor Bradley brought supplies to our table which included the face painting kits. This allowed the art students to be the most connected with the children as they painted their faces for 50 cents or any donation. Alex and I were able to get a few children to add to the board we had created for the children to write on paper leaves that they had colored what they were proud of in their community. To get the ball rolling, we had all the workers at the children's table write something they were proud of the community of Baybrook for so that the kids would have examples to go by. As more kids put leaves onto the board, we were able to slowly take off our own examples, leaving the children's leaves up on the board for the community to see.

If I were able to redo December 1st, I would have asked to either rotate or just leave the kids table to the artists as they were the main attraction at our table, so that I could mingle with the elders of the community and get to know more about the history of Brooklyn and Curtis Bay. I felt that I was unable to connect with the community as much as I would have liked to since throughout the semester I was unable to get out into the community to talk to the store owners and families, and at the event only had contact with the children of the community who wanted to have their faces painted.

I feel that I missed quite a lot of what happened at the event by being at the children's table the entire time, I even missed the paramedics coming to the rescue when Hayley helped a woman who had fallen outside the PHH and cut open her leg.