Posted on August 17, 2010
Today we went Mitzvah Clowning at Bright Side Manor. We (Myself, Elisheva, Daniel, and Hannah) put on make up and funky hats, created clown pseudonyms and made our way over to Bright Side Manor. Not knowing what to expect, as this was my first time mitzvah clowning, I didn’t really know how the residents were going to take to 20 year old clowns. Well…I think they really enjoyed our company. I have never in my life seen people so happy to get a balloon dog. This one woman told me it was the first time someone ever gave her a balloon. I went out to sit on the enclosed porch with this lady and she told me her life story and then some. She said we really make the day for some of the old people here. Then there is their token photographer who walks around taking pictures of everyone. It was really a great experience and I think I enjoyed it just as much as the residents did.
Last Wednesday we had a representative from the Sinai School in the office to teach us how they run and what their philosophy is. The teacher did some exercises with us to help us try to understand a little how the Sinai students think and operate on a daily basis. We had to trace a star using only the reflection (Hannah was the master) and read a story that was written out phonetically (lets just say some of us were better than others). It really got us to think a lot more about the program and people with disabilities in general and was an amazing lesson.
Friday was “Friendly Friday”, we all picked a name out of a hat (Sharon’s hand) and had to get that person a gift. Some of the gifts were a little more traditional than others. For instance Daniel gave Hannah water guns (pretty normal) Hannah gave Sharon a bottle of wine; don’t really know what to say about that but Sharon seems pretty happy about it (what does that say about Sharon?????) I think “Friendly Friday” really gave a nice end to a great week and was a great way to send Sharon on her vacation to Disney.
This is my last week here at Areyvut and looking back I really have learned a lot. Like the key to winning Jeopardy is to having great bell ringing skills. This past week at the staff meeting when we played Jeopardy my bell ringing skills weren’t really up to where they needed to be and I lost ; or paying attention when printing so one doesn’t print a million unnecessary pieces of paper. The other day I had around 60 pages of letters that I was printing one at a time and I was up to page 57 and printed all 60 again, let’s just say I won’t be printing anything for a long time. I think the most vital lesson learned here at Areyvut is that if one sends a email to another person or leaves them a voice mail that other person should respond whether that person want in on your proposal or not (Daniel’s favorite lesson).
My time here at Areyvut has been time well spent. From sending out letters, to doing write ups for the web site, to writing text studies, to playing innovative games at staff meeting, I really have learned a lot .To the next set of interns who enter the Areyvut office I leave you with this:Bring your game face because you never know what to expect!
