Community Center for Youth

During the past year that I worked at Albertsons, I had the privilege of working with the volunteer program for the company. Albertsons associates from across the country logged more than 2 million volunteer hours in their local communities. Part of my job was to arrange volunteer activities for the corporate associates. It involved finding volunteer opportunities in the town, meeting with representatives from the organizations, coordinating details, publicity, recruiting volunteers, attending volunteer activities, following up with the organizations afterward, etc. I had the best time meeting people from all over the city involved in hundreds of meaningful projects and programs such as Habitat for Humanity, The Ronald McDonald House, Boys & Girls Clubs, etc.

Out of these amazing volunteer experiences came the dream of volunteering in Romania…I didn’t know where it would be or what I would be doing, but the desire to volunteer was strong. I knew that through it I would meet great people and get a chance to build relationships with people I might not normally come in contact with. I prayed almost everyday for God to open opportunities for me to volunteer...and I am thrilled to report that God has answered my prayer! I am volunteering at the local Community Center for Youth. I taught a couple classes on the art of balloon twisting and am currently teaching a weekly two-hour conversational English class.



















The class is a lot of work…preparing each week for a two-hour lesson takes me about 15 hours. The students want me to focus on verb tenses, vocabulary building, and idioms. I start each class with an ice-breaker activity aimed at getting them up and talking and enabling me to get to know them better. These activities vary each week and are a lot of fun. I also end each class with about 20 minutes of conversation around specific topics. The students all speak English and are more at the intermediate level, so I have had no problems in communicating with them despite my limited knowledge of the Romanian language. There are approximately 12 teenagers aged 15-18 in my class, although I have new kids popping in all the time so the numbers fluctuate each week.

Last week almost every student in the class came up to me after class and told me how much they were enjoying the class…they said they liked that I made it fun for them and they really felt like they were learning. Even the director said she was pleased with the job I was doing…apparently, she had been listening outside the door for the past 3 weeks to check up on me – ha!

The best part of all is that I am building relationships with some great Romanian kids! I have run into several of them in town and they are always excited to see and talk with me. I’m also helping a couple of them with their English homework outside of class. This opportunity has truly been a dream come true for me and I am so blessed to be here!!