Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Meld

Last night, was my first night volunteering for Meld. It was the first night of a ten week class. So, I am not sure if four kids is the normal. They were in different age groups. One was about five months or so and another one was I would say a little over a year. Then, there was a two year old and a four year old. These boys had the most difficult names to say. I hope no one gets upset that I will tell you that they were black and that I have never really spent time with any black kids. I noticed the skin difference but mostly, I was thinking where are the girls?
I didn't have time to dwell on where the girts were or adoption, because even with another person the little boys kept us busy. The meetings are held in an church so the daycare setting is a church daycare so plenty of toys, but the two older boys were running and climbing on stuff.
I got to work on a puzzle and read a couple books and played pretend games with all the kids. The baby was my favorite though.
I wish I would have known about this program when my daughter was born. I would have gladly moved into a shelter and the counseling and support could have made a difference. But I didn't and there isn't anything I can do about it.
Overall, I had a lot of fun playing with these children. It felt good to make a difference in a small way to the parents and children. I can't wait to go back next week and play some more.

3 comments:

Campbell said...

I think this is fantastic.

What a great volunteer opportunity in what sound like a worthwhile program. I hope it works out for you. It's not easy volunteering sometimes but I really hope it does. Did you have to make a commitment of a specific period of time?

birthmothertalks said...

The classes run for ten weeks and then off for two and then ten weeks and so forth. All I had to commit to was ten weeks. After that I can commit to another ten weeks or longer. I really liked it and adoption was the last thing from my mind, because the kids kept me busy!

Campbell said...

Ten weeks should be enough time to determine if it's right for you.
When I volunteered on a helpline I had to commit to 1 year. There was a significant amount of training involved so I understand why they needed that. The problem was the program itself wasn't run as well as it should have been and I guess that can be an issue for all charitable organizations. It's actually defunct now but I've never regretted doing it. I learned a ton and maybe helped a person or two. We got lots of fake calls which got a little disturbing at times, you can imagine...