Final Summer Service Partnership Presentations Today

Today is the day! Final Summer Service Partnership Presentations will take place this afternoon. Team Woodlawn, Team Greater Grand Crossing and Team South Chicago will be presenting at the Gary Comer Youth Center at 1:00. We have been working hard all week to polish our final presentations, and are excited to share our hard work with the entire SSP community.

All Summer Service Partnership friends, supporters and families are welcome to attend. Presentations will take place between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. in one of the exhibition rooms at the center. Light refreshments will be served. Just tell the person at the front desk of the GCYC that you are with the University of Chicago Summer Service Partnership, and you will be directed to the correct location.

Who: All Summer Service Partnership friends, families and supporters are welcome to attend

What: Summer Service Partnership Final Presentations

Where: The Gary Comer Youth Center, 7200 S. Ingleside

When: 1:00-3:00 p.m.

Why: To celebrate and share our efforts during SSP

Please join us if you are able!

Wellness Fair at the Back to School Jam

Iysha's Nutrition Corner Game

Brittany hoppin' over fences

Taniqua assisting with stress balls

Nutrition table

Relieving stress on the job, Iysha style

Sam and I doing Yoga with the little ones

Decorating canvas bags

Team Greater Grand Crossing

Group picture

Wellness Fair this Saturday!

Today we are working hard to prepare our Wellness Fair. We have been painting signs, creating give-aways, and generally getting our act together.

The Wellness Fair will take place tomorrow, August 7 in Hoard Park as part of the Revere CARE Back-to-School Fair. The park is located directly across from Revere Elementary at 7200 South Dobson. The entire Back-to-School Fair will take place from 10:00 to 4:00, but our booths will be open between 10:00 and 2:00.

Our booths address nutrition and stress. The stress booth will teach ways to manage stress, signs of stress, and how stress impacts your body. Tomorrow we are going to teach people healthy ways to manage stress-- we have a masseuse and two yoga teachers coming to the park to give demonstrations! We also made aromatherapy bath bombs to give away, and will have a make-your-own stress ball station.

At the nutrition booth we will have the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Game, which teaches kids easy daily steps for better health. We will also have canvas bags and aprons to decorate (we already wrote slogans about healthy eating on them).

We also have two pamphlets to pass out-- one addresses healthy eating and one addresses stress. We are excited to share what we have learned this summer with the larger Grand Crossing community!

Please come visit us tomorrow between 10:00 and 2:00. All ages are welcome. It's going to be a great event!

Teen Expo Tonight!

We are excited to participate in the Gary Comer Youth Center's Teen Employment Showcase this evening (Wednesday, August 4). The Teen Expo is taking place tonight from 6:30 to 8:o0 in the Gary Comer Youth Center Cafe. Bennie, Iysha and Taniqua will be presenting about their experiences in SSP. The other teen groups at the center, including the Green Teens and Leaps and Bounds, will be sharing what they have been working on this summer.

We put together a PowerPoint presentation about what we have been doing during SSP. The teens have been practicing (and practicing, and practicing) their presentation this morning. It has been great for us to practice our presentation skills because we will be presenting again next week. It has been a lot of work, but our presentation is going to be quite polished by this evening.

We are excited to share our SSP experiences with the larger Gary Comer Youth Center community! Everyone is welcome to attend.

When will my [week 6] Reflection show, who I am inside???

First off, for anyone who gets the song reference in the title, KUDOS!

Second off, we had another rousing week here at the Gary Comer Youth Center and are thrilled to finally have the balls in motion for our project. Monday and Tuesday we were at the center working on what our final big event is going to be: Wellness Fair that will take place NEXT Saturday Aug. 7 at Hoard Park. Because we are going to be paired with the Revere Back to School Jam, we had a few meetings with some of the representatives. They all seemed very excited to work with us and have us at the fair, giving presentations about nutrition and stress management. In the long term, this will be very beneficial because not only will we be reaching teens, but also younger children and their parents as well. So far, we have a few posters made that will encompass stress management, effects of stress on the body, the NEW food pyramid, some fun nutrition game, and a few other handouts for the people. Another possibility is having some yoga instructors give short demonstrations for the people, as well as a possible masseuse?? (more info in the next few days)

On Wednesday, the whole group went on a field trip to Common Threads, an non-profit organization that teaches children how to cook.
Taniqua: I thought it was a really good program, and my favorite part of the day was dancing the Merengue even though I don't like to dance.
Bennie: I thought that the trip was really fun and enjoyed spending time with the kids. My favorite part of the day was learning the Merengue!
Iysha: I thought Common Threads was interesting and fun, especially how kids so young were learning how to cook and use sharp knives. I also thought it was crazy that you have to volunteer for 12 weeks, a very long time. My favorite part of the day was tasting some food and the dancing.
Sarah: I thought it was a very cool place to visit because they don't just teach cooking, they also teach about new culutures - something really neat. One impressive thing about their nonprofit is that they have grown very quickly by getting people who work as chefs to lead their organization on various levels. Overall, Common Threads was a fun place to visit because our kids got to try such different things. I'd say it was the favorite trip of the year!

On Thursday, we worked on putting together the educational brochures and pamphlets that we will distribute to the community at our wellness fair. It takes a great deal of formatting and choosing just the right amount of information to put on a piece of paper, but I think we'll figure it out. We hope that these can be used by the center for future reference, which will direct teens or adults to resources for dealing with stress or mental health management. A great thing about the center is they actually just hired a man here, who is a PhD and has worked with a focus on stress and mental health wellness....right up our alley. We hope to pair with him in the upcoming weeks and figure out a possible long term project for us to use.

I was unfortunately MIA on Wednesday and Thursday due to my formidable foe the rhinovirus, but I came back Friday stronger than ever to work on our project some more. We found out that the end of summer Teen Expo for the GCYC will be taking place next Wednesday evening, and Iysha, Taniqua and Bennie are expected to present about their experiences with SSP. We've been working on preparing the presentations, making sure we give everyone a brief overview of all that we have done. I think I realized this more as I went along, but we have done a LOT this summer, and the time has truly flown by. From field trips, to educational classes, to films viewed and readings, our busy scheduled helped pass the time. I cannot believe we are already ending week 6....only 2 weeks left?! CRAZY! It has definitely been an exciting ride, and I cannot imagine my summer going any other way.

Teenage stress, you know it's undeniable

The GGC team made a stress song with the beat of California Gurls. We came up with this idea because the GGC team loves to sing and dance and since our project deals with teen stress we decided to make a video about teen stress. Stay tuned to see our final product!

Love,

Iysha

Two Threads From Yesterday

During the Merengue Dancing classes, me, Brittany, Sam, and Tevin played a game called "This is my move." The game went like this, introduce yourself then show your famous dance move that you do. Well Sam went first and did this crazy but intriguing dance move with her two index fingers, poking toward the air and moving round and round. It was so funny. It reminds me of this movie called "Date Movie," when these two fat guys ran up to each other and start dancing just like Sam was dancing. Everyone else did their dance move and it was cool to see what people like to do on the dance floor. We had fun while waiting to go inside to dance.

After playing "This is my move," we finally went in the wide and beautiful dance class. This was such a magnificent experience because we were stalking the children with our eyes, observing there every move in Merengue. Then me, Tevin, and Alex started to dance in the back, following the little 8-11 year olds. Then one of the instructors said we can join. That's when me, Tevin, and Alex started to join in along with Sam, Taniqua, Iysha, Brittany, and Passion. It was very hilarious to see multiple people do Merengue because it requires technique and a lot of hip moving. My favorite part was the partner dance because I felt like I was preparing for a big event. After the kids saw us dancing they thought dancing was fun and seemed to enjoy themselves. Overall the experiences was really unbelievable.

-Bennie

I had a blast yesterday at Common Threads. The kids looked like little chefs. They had chef hats and aprons on and were cutting avocado. They seemed like they knew what they were doing. They were making chicken and vegetarian empanadas and guacamole with mango. I didn't get the chance to taste the guacamole, but I got a chance to taste the empanada filling and let me tell you, it was great! Then we went into one of the workshops where they were making pinatas and this boy made a great Elmo pinata (I love Elmo). So I walked up to him and said, "I like your Elmo," and he looked at me crazy and said, "Uh... thanks." After we left the pinata workshop we went to a dance class. I went in there and the first thing I saw was bored children. I was not expecting to participate in the dance class, but I did and we had fun.

-Taniqua

This Week in GGC

This week was a great week for the Greater Grand Crossing team. Our project is really taking shape, and we are excited to be working towards a focused goal.

First, some thoughts about our experiences this week:

On Wednesday, the SSP groups came together at the University of Chicago. In the morning, we viewed a portion of the acclaimed documentary series Unnatural Causes. This series was originally broadcast on PBS in 2008, and is now used by thousands of organizations around the country as a teaching tool. The series investigates how the social circumstances in which we are born, live and work impact our health. After watching the movie, the students and leaders discussed pertinent points from the film. To learn more, please visit http://www.unnaturalcauses.org.

After our film and discussion, we continued our exploration of different cultures--this time through home-cooked food. We had an amazing potluck! Iysha's favorite things at the potluck were Jason's guacamole and enchiladas, and Denise's rice and beans. Bennie's favorite things were Alex's fried rice and Sam's icebox cake. He also liked the guacamole, which is significant because he'd never tasted it before. Taniqua's favorite food was Bennie's peach cobbler. It was clear that the students and leaders of SSP are all great cooks who really enjoy food!

On Wednesday afternoon, the students gained experience speaking in front of a group by teaching a talent to the members of the SSP. Taniqua said, "Watching the talents was lots of fun. I learned how to make a bun using a sock-- I honestly never knew how to do that before." She was referring to Imari's presentation, in which she styled Sam's hair using a sock. Bennie said, "It was interesting to learn the certain ways to throw a baseball." He was referring to Alex's presentation, in which he taught the group how to throw a baseball by breaking it down, step-by-step. It was really fun to see all the high school students' hidden talents. They are really great teachers!

On Thursday morning, each high school student created a professional resume. The students emailed their resumes to themselves, so they have a version they can add to as they gain work and educational experience. Each student also brought home a paper copy of his/her resume. It was great to see the students working so hard in such a focused manner.

We ended Thursday afternoon with an ASAP session. ASAP stands for Adolescent Substance Abuse Program; its lessons involve looking at human organs (heart, lungs, liver, and brain), learning about their normal function, and then discussing how substance abuse impacts each organ. The students (many of whom want to enter a health-related profession) were really engaged during the ASAP session. Taniqua said, "I thought it was disgusting and felt like I was going to pass out... but it was interesting. I really got into the brain." Bennie thought the heart was especially interesting, and Iysha reminded him that the left heart is so big because it has to pump blood to the entire body. The students clearly learned something yesterday, even though it took them a little while to get used to looking at human organs.

Today, the GGC group worked on signs and posters for our booths at the Wellness Fair. We also had a meeting with Ms. Brown, a representative from the community organization Revere Care. We are now planning to combine our Wellness Fair with another community event-- the Revere Care Back-to-School Jam. We are excited to be involved in an annual event in the community, and are really looking forward to reaching a larger audience than just the students who frequent the Gary Comer Youth Center. Stay tuned for more information about how our Wellness Fair is going to be integrated into the Revere Care Back-to-School Jam.

P.S. We are in excellent spirits right now in GGC! Iysha and Jason are singing and dancing in their chairs. Happy Friday!

Our Project is Shaping Up

As we mentioned before, the Gary Comer Youth Center program directors asked us to create a one-time special event and a project that will have a long-term effect. We have thought long and hard to create a service project that meets these requirements and also fills an empty niche at the center. The center has a ton of amazing programming, so it was actually quite difficult to choose a topic that is not already being addressed by a program or system at the center. Our high school students adroitly identified teen stress as a problem for students in Greater Grand Crossing that is not currently being addressed at the center. The GCYC program directors agreed that teen stress is a fresh new topic for a service project. We are excited to address teen stress through both an event and a project that will have a long-term effect.

Last week, we decided to put on a Wellness Fair at the Gary Comer Youth Center as our special event. We are excited about the Wellness Fair because it will address many of the social determinants of health that we have discussed this summer, as well as teen stress. We are planning to invite various groups that work at the center (the Green Teens and the Access Clinic, for example) as well as medical student groups and other community members. We are busy planning what will be an exciting event. Stay tuned for more updates, including the specific date and time of the event.

It was a bit harder to pin down an idea for a long-term project. We are currently looking into what kinds of projects will be helpful. It is difficult to choose something that will be self-sustaining without creating a bunch of additional work for the people who work at the center. Thus far, we are planning to make a brochure that outlines the typical causes of stress for teens (as identified by our survey) and then details the services and resources that exist for teens who are experiencing these kinds of stress.

Teaching Talents

Today we are planning the lessons we are going to teach to the rest of the SSP group on Wednesday. We are teaching these short lessons for three reasons. First, to practice speaking in front of a group. Second, to learn how to break a task down into manageable steps. Third, to share a talent or interest with the group. We are looking forward to learning more about each other tomorrow. I'm also hoping to learn some new skills!

Bennie is going to teach the group how to draw in perspective. Taniqua is going to teach the group how to do a backbend. Iysha is going to teach the group how to make a stress ball (because we are going to make them at the Wellness Fair).

Stay tuned to learn more about our short teaching experiences!

Week 4 - Almost There

Team Greater Grand Crossing had an interesting week filled with interviews, vegan soul food and learning a little more about what our project might turn into this summer. On Monday, we worked to try and narrow down our group's interests for the project. While stress and nutrition were mentioned previously, we had not fully identified what a strong, sustainable idea might look like. In order to get inspired for more ideas, we listened to a podcast dealing with Geoffrey Canada and his Harlem Children's Promise Zone project. What really stood out was the care and detail with which he started this project, and he wanted to make sure that every family was educated on the best way to make their children successful. The theory was that creating a generation of success for the youth of Harlem would lead to greater numbers of professionals who, hopefully, would one day return to their home neighborhoods and help to strengthen the community. It was fun to listen to, and quite engaging, which was new for me since I had never really listened to the program previously.

On Tuesday we took an adventure to Soul Vegetarian restaurant which was....a unique experience to say the least. I think the food was surprisingly good, while some of it I was not really sold on. I cannot say that I will ever visit this place again, nor will I become a vegan after this, but it was fun. At least, it was fun watching the kids trying all these new types of foods. After lunch we viewed the film "Food, Inc." which was incredible and enlightening. I really enjoyed the way they worked so much information into a short film and time. It will make me think twice about where food really does come from, and inspires me to try and eat more organic and locally grown products...even though it may be more expensive.

Thursday was an other highlight because we ran practice interviews with the high school students in which we filmed them and asked general questions that they would be asked in a regular interview. Most of them did well, and it was cool to finally see 1) how their voices sound when being recorded, and 2) any body language they do without thinking.

After the end of this week we have finally narrowed down a possible project idea that would be fun and sustainable. For one, we want to have a broad "Wellness Day" here at the center that would focus on more than just stress, but also nutrition and physical activity as well. This entails having to plan a lot, because we'd have to reach out to kids at the center and also community members. Because we've identified stress as an issue in the community, we ideally would like to spread the word through using flyers around the neighborhood. The only problem is that we would want this to take place soon, so we could still reach the teens while they are still here at the center for their summer projects (Aug 6 is their last day). Another possible project that might be more sustainable would be nutrition classes for elementary students, specifically 3rd or 4th graders. If our students were able to be trained by, say, med students, and were provided with a curriculum that they could continue with teaching and mentoring the younger kids, we hope it might make a difference. Perhaps early intervention may be the way to go for nutrition?

Who knows, but at least we have an idea of what to do!

Interview Practice

Yesterday we learned a lot about how to prepare for an interview and possible questions that an interviewer will ask. Deana and Brittany interviewed Toussaint and Becky. Becky did a basic interview that showed how to act and what to do in an interview. Toussaint, on the other hand, did the total opposite of a proper interview. This took place at the University of Chicago. After the med students Becky and Toussaint got interviewed, we split up into groups and the high school students got interviewed by the med students and the undergrads.

Some of the questions people asked were:

Tell me a little about yourself.

Tell me about a failure in your life. What did you learn from that failure?

What is a challenge you have faced? How did you overcome that challenge?

What are your plans for after high school?

What is a book that influenced you? Why did that book impact you?

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

If you could meet any person, living or dead, who would it be?

What would change about your high school? Why?

What activities do you participate in outside of school?

I believe that the interviews were so funny and helpful. I really enjoyed the interview with Sam. At first, I was a little nervous. Over time, though, I got used to it and realized that I would eventually adjust to talking to people who I don't know. I also realized that I will eventually need to learn how to speak at a volume thats loud enough, but just not too much. I think that this experience was terrific. It will help me overall through life whether or not I'm the interviewer or the interviewee.

Cross-Cultural Dexterity

We went to a discussion about developing cross-cultural dexterity on Thursday July 15, 2010 that was given by Wallace Goode and Rosita Ragin. I think what we talked about will help me think about who I am. For example, we talked about how others judge people. That related to me because when I see people I don't know, I talk about them. I always judge a book its cover. I know it's wrong and not good, but I do it anyway. They might look mean or crazy, but deep down they are the nicest person ever. What I took from this is don't judge a book by its cover and give them a chance.

Baby College

On Monday we listened to a podcast on Geoffrey Canada. This podcast was very intriguing. Geoffrey is from Harlem, and he wanted to improve education. He thought continuously of finding a way to improve education. Finally Geoffrey found a way, but it took a long time. He compared families with high income to parents in Harlem with low income. Geoffrey analyzed the results and realized that education has a major part in to the negative and positive words children hear when they are infants. So he took that into account and saw a program that he could start in his hometown. Geoffrey came up with this program called Baby College to educate families on a proper way to ensure a healthy and well-rounded baby. The program changed a lot of parent choices on corporal punishment and in taking care of their child or children.

The program that Geoffrey created was very effective to me. I believe this is an effective program because it will change parent perspective of how to raise their child to ensure proper education and vocabulary. Also I believe this program is effective because many parents aren’t fit to be parents or they just need to be guided.

Week Three Wrap Up and Reflection

This afternoon we checked in with Miss Senyah and Miss Terica from the Gary Comer Youth Center. We discussed what we have been doing for the past two weeks, and shared ideas for how our projects could progress forward. Miss Senyah and Miss Terica are especially excited about our interest in reducing stress in the teenage population. We talked about how Gary Comer College Prep might be a good place to study stress in teens. Both Iysha and Bennie speak highly of their school, but it is clear that it can be a stressful place. New freshmen can have a hard time adjusting to GCCP's high expectations for behavior and academics. Freshman year, therefore, can be really challenging for some students. The teens also talked about the looming stress that comes with junior year--the stress of college admissions and the ACT can be overwhelming.

We talked about some ways to measure whether stress reduction is working. They suggested that we could possibly track conduct reports, number of students in detention, or number of violent incidents at school.

Ideally, the center would like us to plan one big event as well as ongoing programming. We are still coming up with ideas for what these programs might look like.

We are also still interested in pursuing nutrition programming, but we focused on the topic of stress in today's meeting.

Greater Grand Crossing Goes to Yoga

Yesterday, the Summer Service Partnership participants took a yoga class. We have been exploring various ways to stay healthy, so trying yoga fit right into our plans. Yoga was especially relevant to the Grand Crossing team because we are interested in stress reduction, and yoga is a well known way to manage stress.

Iysha and Bennie had done yoga during P.E. at Gary Comer College Prep. Iysha said, "Yoga was very soothing." Bennie thought the yoga class was, "Painful but beneficial." Taniqua had never done yoga before. She said, "It was fun. It made me feel relaxed." Jason thought yoga was, "A really cool experience because it makes you really relaxed. It makes your whole body feel rested and at ease." Sarah thought the class was great and was really happy to see everyone from Grand Crossing put their best effort in to the class. Everyone agreed that they would do yoga again if given the chance. We liked how Cecily, the yoga teacher, taught us with a good mix of seriousness and humor. She had a very soothing voice and gave directions very clearly.

Thank you, Cecily!

Lunch Adventure: Vegetarian Restaurant

Today we had lunch at Brother Tim's Vegetarian Restaurant, which I thought was going to be horrible but turned out to be good. Other people liked it too. So Bennie had a taco and peach cobbler. He said "It was delicioso, but my peach cobbler is better than their peach cobbler." Taniqua had an avocado burger. She said "I would eat it again but I would bring my own beef patty." Jason had an avocado taco and falafel. He said "It was delicious, but I need about 12 more tacos to get full." Brittany had an avocado taco and a chili tamale. She said "As a vegetarian I was very pleased." Sarah had a salad with avocado and she said, "The dressing could haven been better but the avocado was really good."
Brother Tim's Restaurant is in Greater Grand Crossing on 71st street.

LEADING TO ANOTHER

Yesterday we read a short story in a book called Narrative Matters edited by F. Mullan, E.Fickens, and K. Rubin. This short story was titled No Come Nada. “No Come Nada” means don’t eat anything. This short story is about how a Mexican pediatrician calls for the nationwide backup for fighting childhood obesity among his patients. There are numerous of times mothers, fathers, and etc come to Dr. Garcia for help because they believe there child isn’t eating enough and they would be already over their normal weight level. For instance, he sees this toddler who is two years old and is 38 pounds which is far above the normal weight level for his age. The mother tells Dr. Garcia that he hasn’t eaten anything in 3 days. Dr. Garcia tries to explain to the toddler’s mother that he doesn’t need to eat more without exactly saying it. Dr. Garcia tries several strategies to persuade to the parents that their child doesn’t need anything else to eat. This short story was very interesting because it also explains how the government tries to advertise various ways for families to keep away from unhealthy products such as stores with junk food, restaurants, and more. They also are considering cutting back some big hangout spots such as what they sell in the movies, little snacks and juices in stores, increasing tax, and also vending machines in schools along with Mc Donald’s and other fast food restaurants. I really like this short story because it will inform you of some possible future changes before they happen .

Stress Survey Findings

This is a ssp (summer service project) survey for teens in the Greater Grand Crossing to see if they deal with a great amount of stress in the community.In the survey we collected data that showed how male and female teens felt about stress.



We found that more teens said that their stress level on a scale 1-5 is about 3(manageable, but tense).

Also more teens said that school and family are the causes for their stress. Teens deal with more stress during the school year than when school is out. More females said that friends are the cause for their stress.

Causes of Stress for Teens at GCYC

Also the teens said that music and sports is how they deal with there stress. If there were programs to help deal with stress, teens said they would attend yoga, time management, art and counseling classes.

Programs Teens Would Attend to Reduce Stress

By Iysha and Taniqua

Graphs by Jason and Brittany

Week Two Wrap Up

We started the week with a tour of the Chicago’s South Side. The students learned up some interesting details during the tour. Bennie was really surprised by the number of famous African Americans who live (or have lived) in a small area of Hyde Park (Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama). Iysha learned some interesting information about Dyett high school, a public high school that is located in Washington Park. Dyett has an urban farm, much like the one at Gary Comer Youth Center. Taniqua learned about the history of the steel mills in the city; she was surprised to observe the huge, abandoned tracts of land along the lakefront. Our tour concluded with a visit to Yassa, a Senegalese restaurant in the Greater Grand Crossing community. Some students loved the food, while others found it to be a bit too spicy!

On Tuesday, we continued our exploration of the Greater Grand Crossing community. This time, we focused on exploring grocery and corner stores. We have been learning about food deserts, and understand that Greater Grand Crossing is a designated food desert. Even so, we were curious to see whether our research matched up with reality. To that end, we went into a number of stores on 71^st and 79^th street. Sure enough, most food stores carried little (if any) fresh produce. Soda and junk food were advertised aggressively, while healthy food was pushed back into the corners of the stores.

On Wednesday, we researched our main topics of interest: stress and food deserts. We compiled the information into a PowerPoint presentation that we would share with the other community teams on Thursday. We worked and worked (and edited and edited) to make a presentation that would accurately portray the work we have been doing in Greater Grand Crossing thus far.

On Thursday, the three community groups came together at the University of Chicago to share their presentations. It was really fun to see what the other groups have been working on in South Chicago and Woodlawn. It was good to practice presenting in front of a group since that can be nerve-wracking. The Greater Grand Crossing students did a great job presenting and expressed admiration for the work of their peers as well.

We also attended a CAMP lunch and lecture about service on Thursday. The Chicago Academic Medicine Program (CAMP) is a summer program for undergraduate premedical students. The Pritzker School of Medicine Office of Multicultural Affairs developed CAMP to help multicultural and disadvantaged students build the knowledge base and academic skills necessary for success in a premedical program. The Summer Service Partnership students have been invited to participate in some components of the CAMP program. Last Thursday, students attended a lunch and lecture, during which they met professors, medical students, and CAMP participants. It was a bit awkward at first, but the students enjoyed interacting with the medical students and professors once the ice was broken.

On Friday, we spent the morning helping out in the Gary Comer Youth Center garden. The rooftop garden is amazing! (Please see below for more details about our visit to the garden). Friday afternoon was topped off by a visit to Gary Comer Youth Center’s “Harvest Table.” On Friday afternoons from 4:00-6:00, GCYC has a “Harvest Table” event. Vegetables and flowers from the garden are available for purchase in a mini farmer’s market. We watched a cooking demonstration where we learned to make vegetable quiche (and tasted some free samples!) Attending Harvest Table was a great way to wrap up a fun week.

Volunteering in the Rooftop Garden

This morning we volunteered in the rooftop garden at the Gary Comer Youth Center. We helped kids from the center explore the garden. The little kids had to find a flower, a sprout, a seedling, and a seed. The older kids had to draw different kinds of plants and then complete research about their plant. We helped the older kids find ripe strawberries to pick and eat.

The Gary Comer Youth Center rooftop garden grows herbs, flowers, vegetables and fruit. This summer, they are growing: pumpkins, lots of different kinds of peppers, popcorn, sunflowers, tomatoes, potatoes, sage, mint, lemon verbena, strawberries, cucumbers, beans, lettuce, and lots of grasses and flowers.

Here is some nice fresh lettuce growing in the garden. We might have had this lettuce in our salads for lunch today.

These are tiny little purple peppers. They are fiery hot!

Some strawberries in the garden are sweet and some are sour. It depends on how ripe they are.

Both of these peppers are green. Be careful, though, because the skinny one is called, "Ring of Fire!"

This butterfly was flying around the garden. He is a beautiful, yellow and black innocent butterfly.

Posted by Iysha and Sarah

Meet the Team: Iysha, Bennie and Taniqua

My name is Iysha. I go to Gary Comer College Prep and I am going to be in the 11th grade. I live in the Roseland neighborhood. I chose SSP because I wanted to experience something different and I love community work. One thing that I learned so far is that the City of Chicago has 77 different neighborhoods. Another thing that I learned was that Dyett High School was a grammar school before it was a high school. What I like about SSP is that we get to experience different kinds of foods. When I am out of high school I want to attend college then I want to work on being a nurse or becoming a family doctor.

Hello, my name is Bennie. I attend Gary Comer College prep, which is a Charter School. Once I start school again, I will be a Junior/11th grade. The neighborhood that I live in is Roseland. I chose to do SSP because I knew this would help me in the future if I decided not to become and architect or entrepreneur. I learned a lot these past 2 weeks. I learned that the most influential and significant men who live in Hyde Park are: Barack Obama, Louis Farrakan, Mohammad Ali, and Jesse Jackson. Also, I learned that you should try knew things and that connections I make will be beneficial to me when I attend college. Our service project will address teen stress or food deserts. In SSP I like that we explore multiple environments and neighborhoods. After high school I want to go to college on a scholarship so I can fulfill my dreams. Also, I want to graduate with a doctoral degree in Business and Architecture. I'm interested in starting my own clothing and shoe line and designing my own house.

My name is Taniqua. I’m homeschooled. I will be a junior in high school. I live in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood. I wanted to participate in the SSP program because I think it’s a chance for me to try new things and learn something I didn’t know before. Plus, it’s a great experience. I’ve learned more about health issues and how they impact our community. I also learned that there’s more history behind Greater Grand Crossing that I didn’t know about. The topics I would be interested in researching are stress and environmental health concerns. What I like about the SSP program is that I can learn new and different things without feeling like I’m in school. After high school I would like to go to college for forensic science or to be a pastry chef.

Disparities abound: Notes from the field

On our community walking yesterday, I noticed something rather odd while passing beneath the Skyway (I90). For such a large road, one would think they'd pay a little more attention to their intersections not even a block away...

"They do not care"

http://chicagoist.com/2010/06/27/grand_crossing_residents_demand_end.php

It was difficult to conceptualize the neighborhood violence that Bennie, Iysha, and Taniqua where describing to me while we sat together in the art studio of the beautiful Gary Comer Youth Center. Being surrounded by all the students' art made it difficult to remember the violence and suffering that's continuing outside its doors, but I was quickly reminded when I checked my email. My roommate had sent me this article with the warning "Be careful."

I brought up the article to Bennie and Iysha and I was overwhelmed by their amount of knowledge. How had Jason, Sarah, and I been walking down the same 79th street that people protested on and not know anything about the situation going on in the community we're here to serve? Are we not being aware, or is there a lack of connection between the youth and speaking out about this issue?

"They do not care." Iysha kept repeating when I asked how kids feel about the abundance of deaths and gang violence in the neighborhood. Obviously gang violence isn't conducive to a healthy community. Besides the visible effects, a violent neighborhood increases the stress of community members, which leads to an array of health problems. But how do we go about developing a service project that could address this problem? Is it too big an issue to tackle for the amount of time we have? Probably. But regardless, it raises the issue of apathy. In all service projects which require community involvement how do we combat apathy?

Reflections Week 1

I think one of the highlights of the week was being able to walk around the neighborhood and having the kids show us around. While only one of our students actually lives here, the other two knew where the local parks were, and certainly where the nearest “market” was located to buy flaming hot cheetos and soda. One thing that struck me right off the bat was the construction surrounding GCYC. There was a lot of noise and quite a bit of debris spread around the area, making it somewhat chaotic; however, after passing this section of the neighborhood we were able to see a lot more assets.

One asset is that people seem to be friendly and do not mind waving and greeting you kindly as you pass by. Another cool thing I noticed was that many people have planted gardens and flowers all along the street to beautify the neighborhood. The fact that people have such an investment in their community is incredible, and I think any project involving “bettering the community” would really boost their overall mentality.

Upon conclusion of the week I think the most focused we have been able to get, in regards to choosing an area of interest, the only thing our students have suggested is stress. They state that being in school, living in the area, family, all cause them to be stressed out, and a big problem is that they are rarely ever taken seriously. Therefore, a proposed project idea might involve dealing with stress in a peaceful way, and investigating further what the physical effects of stress are on your body.
Another possible topic of interest arose from our community walks, where nutrition takes a backseat and it can be quite difficult to come across fresh fruits and vegetables. We’ll see where things go from here, but so far so good.

Reflections from Chinatown

"My Day with the SSP Group: Chinatown"
We went to Chinatown yesterday and had a lot of fun. The whole group played games and waited for the "magic school bus" so we could leave. We arrived at the restaurant and tried a lot of new food. Bennie and I had to stay away from the seafood so Jason wouldn't have to work under pressure to save us ha ha ha! Then after lunch we took a tour of Chinatown and went to another restaurant that sells bubble tea. It was really good but a few people didn't like it. Bennie looked like he was going to puke. Alex and Whitney were so grossed out. Then we went to some Chinese grocery stores and let's just say they are very different from regular grocery stores. So after all of our fun we got back on the "magic school bus" and went back to the school.
- Taniqua

"Big Day!! Chinatown"
Today we had a great time. We tried new foods and drinks. Some liked them and others didn't. For instance, me I loved the drink but I hated the tapioca pearls that were in the drink. It started by me asking, "What's this?" Well, that is tapioca pearls. "Aww." Try them, you might like them. Iysha tried them and loved the tapioca pearls. "These are good," she said. Then it was my turn, I slurped my drink cautiously and slowly. Two tapioca pearls came up. They were gushy, slimy and hard to eat so I was just going to swallow them and then I just said forget it and spit it out. It was disgusting and gooey. I believe honestly that I will never try tapioca pearls ever in my life. Even though I didn't like the tapioca pearls I'm glad I tried new things and I really enjoyed the other dishes such as the noodle dish, rice, vegetarian eggrolls, and my fortunes. It was really exciting. I'm thrilled that we went to Chinatown.
- Bennie

"Chinatown"
On Thursday we visited Chinatown which was fun and a bit crazy at the same time. We ate different kinds of foods, which were all good to try. After that we all walked around Chinatown, when walking around we saw different kinds of animals, such as dog, monkey, horse, etc. The animals were to resemble you; for example, the dog was to resemble me which I thought was really cool. After that we tried drinks which I thought were going to taste nasty, but which turned out to be very tasty. After that we walked around and went into some stores that didn't smell so well, and I saw so many sea animals which were cool to see. After that we boarded the bus and went back home.
- Iysha

Community Exploration

More pictures from our outing last week!

Community Outing

Here are some of the pictures I took from Wednesday. I do NOT claim to be a photographer, just tried taking pictures of some of the parks we walked around.

Welcome SSPers!

Hey Everyone!

This will be our blog for the Greater Grand Crossing site during the summer of 2010. We will be able to post reflections from projects, field trips, or just overall topics you feel interested in. This summer we will be exposed to plenty of incredible things related to community health and medicine, so we want to make sure that you keep track of everything on this site.

Things to remember:
1) Be respectful and courtesy to your peers and SSP mentors (both the medical students and the UChicago undergraduates).
2) Use proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc while writing either a post or a response to somebody else's post. We ultimately would like to use things written here for our final projects, or students may be able to incorporate it into their personal statements someday. We would not want "sUmtHInG WrOte lIKe 'dis."
3) Feel free to be as open and honest about things we learn on this site. This is a space of expression and respect, so we would like to hear your honest opinions about the things we are doing.

Sarah or I will often respond to posts or make announcements on here, so please try and keep up with the blog when you are able to. We cannot wait to get to know you better and loof forward to having a great summer!

Cheers,

Jason and Sarah