Nature Park Daycamp Volunteering (30+ hours) July - August
This year, once again, I have decided to spend a good part of my summer volunteering for a daycamp (essentially a two-hour daycare with educational elements) at the nature park. In the daycamp I am a leader to the kids and help manage different things that the camp directors cannot do alone. These things include: taking kids on walks, playing games with the kids, as well as helping the kids do the camp activities (e.g. helping them draw picture or cut out paper). As one can see, a camp leader has all sorts of responsibilities ranging from the creative (helping kids draw) to the active (taking kids on walks). Furthermore, I have the chance to work with other volunteers from different areas of the community. This year, I have worked with many people including: my friends from the previous year, exchange students from Korea, and students from Victoria. The nature park's excellent student exchange program provides a diverse background of volunteers, most of whom are university students and high school students. The work with kids is very rewarding, and I have learned a lot from volunteering at the park these past few years. I have learned the values of responsibility and so much more. One especially fond moment of mine at the nature park was when a little child of five or so asked me: "Are you coming back next year?" When I inquired why, he replied: "Because I'll only come if you come!" That was last year. This year he came back. If there is one lesson or human value I could impart from all of this, I think the most important would be the understanding that kids are not so different from you or I; like us, they laugh, they play, and in that process: they learn.

All aboard the IB train
September - November
This year, as many of my fellow students know, my friends Perry, Shirley, and I have been leading the Richmond Secondary School Volunteer Club: Colts that Care. Colts that Care provides volunteer opportunities to Richmond High students such as pumpkin carving at the nature park, fireworks at minoru park, and the halloween wildthings event at the nature park. Although our club's start to the year was quite rocky, we have managed to get ourselves into pretty good shape now that we've been managing the club for over two months. The responsibilities of being a leader of the club include speaking publically to the club every Thursday at the club meetings, organizing and assigning jobs to people at volunteer events, answering the questions of the student body about certain activities, coordinating meetind dates with the sponsor teacher, arranging group transport to certain events, and logistical tasks such as sending out emails for club meetings, recording volunteer hours, and managing the vast amount of volunteers we get for the events we help out at. As a result, we have had more volunteers this year than many of the previous years. There are many things I learned from being a leader of Colts That Care such as efficient ways of speaking to the public and how to organize events effectively. If I could improve upon this experience, I would learn to be more prepared for the meetings and when speaking to the students. Being a good public speaker not only keeps the students in a club, but also entertains them so that they would not be bored at the meetings.

PS: We probably wouldnt have lost a good tenth of our members if we spoke well on the first day.

Halloween Pumpkin Carving (two and a half hours)
Altogether, the halloween pumpkin carving was a semi-success. Unfortunately, due to certain unseen elements, it was not wholly a success. Historically, this event has always been done by steveston-london volunteer club, "Jaws with a Cause", and richmond high volunteer club "Colts that Care". However, with the formation of a Palmer volunteer club, "Griffins that Give", there were more than 60 volunteers at the pumpkin carving event this year as opposed to around 40. Although more volunteers are helpful in some ways, there were often complaints of not having enough tools to carve pumpkins and not having enough space to work. But most of all, the major complaint was that the volunteering time was too short. Originally planned to be 9 - 12 PM, the event barely lasted until eleven. Many Colts that Care members felt disappointed and I feel responsible for that disappointment. If I had been more attentive to the number of volunteers, perhaps I could have worked out some sort of arrangement with the natur park that would allow everyone get more volunteer hours. But I didnt. However, most of the student body felt that it was a moderately good event. The success of the event came from the many creative and artistic pumpkins carved at the event. My job included arranging group transport to the nature park, as well as recording volunteer hours for every Colts that Care member who went to the event.

Halloween Fireworks - Minoru Park (6 hours)
The halloween fireworks at minoru was fun as ever. This year, there were a record number of volunteers at the event. Duties included setting up the stage, seeting up the tents, distributing candy and coupons to the visitors, as well as organizing jobs for many of the volunteers from Richmond High. The even was successful and entertaining with its fire dancers', its magician, and of course, the fireworks. However, there was a period of mismanagement (from the richmond city coordinators) from 4 PM - 7 PM that left many people standing about. If I could do this again, I'd try my best to preplan the event with the coordinators so that people would not have to stand around bored for over an hour. This is essentially an issue with organization, much like the halloween pumpkin carving event above. As such, one of my goals for the year is to continually increase my organization skills and make the events that Colts that Care goes to better and better.