Saturday, March 24th, My First Day
I guess I hadn’t yet experienced volunteering at Children’s a sacrifice. Sure, it wasn’t the best experience ever, going through the application process. Still, everything had been relatively painless and the concept of working with children was worth it in my opinion.
It became evident of an impending sacrifice Friday afternoon. With the gorgeous weather and the energy running amongst my friends Frisbee and outside games were rampant. My energy level was running low on Friday so I spent most of the day sleeping (bum, I know), but later in the day, we began to make plans for the next day. Frisbee and climbing trees were on the agenda, among other things. Not to mention we planned on watching the hockey game.
It wasn’t until later on that I realized that I had the Children’s Hospital shift from 1-4, with around an hour and a half commute both ways. It wasn’t like I considered not going, it just sucked a little giving up the first real nice Saturday of the year.
I left my dorm at 11:04AM took the Campus Connector to Union and Washington. Shortly after my arrival, I took the 16 to the 5th St. Garage Transit Center in downtown Minneapolis. From there I took 94C to downtown St Paul and another bus to the hospital. Round about way, huh?
I had around forty minutes before the shift, so I ate a sandwich from a café a bit down the street. The food wasn’t very good and the service was slow, but I was too anxious for it to really bother me.
I got to the right place at 1PM. The only person there was Molly, one of the volunteer coordinators. She got me started and introduced me to my trainer, Sandy when she arrived.
I went over the guidelines and rules, got a tour and saw where I will be working. The only children I worked with were two little twin girls. They were just babies and it broke my heart a little to see them so ill. They weren’t horribly ill or anything, I’m not sure what was wrong exactly, but they definitely weren’t feeling up to par. One of the little girls would be giggling and rolling around, then we would start coughing. When she would cough, she would lose all of her energy and would curl up in her crib; sometimes, she would whimper or cry a little. I really just wanted to make her better, which was obviously not in my power, so instead I would try to just rub her back and entertain her into smiling.
Overall the experience was really fun. I got to meet some nice girls and was able to work in some sweet kids. I’m really excited for next Friday. It is defiantly worth any sacrifice taken to help the kids and workers at the children’s hospital.
Comments
Wow! Cathe, you sure sound like an awesome kid! I really think you should have a good time at Children's. By the way, it is kid of weird that you are writing on your own blog, but hey, anything that puts off other homework, right?!?
Posted by: Cathe Island | March 26, 2007 3:25 AM
I am so jealous you get to work with babies. I love babies. I think they are the cutest thing ever. Thank goodness I have like baby cousins to play with haha. It breaks my heart too to see babies stuggling because you know you can't do anything directily to help them. Well I hope this all works out for you!
Posted by: Sara Hildebrandt | March 31, 2007 7:53 PM
Good on you for volunteering. I think it would be especially hard to work with sick kids. But it sounds like you have quite a hike to get there. An hour and a half - yikes! I find half an hour a long time. I think that shows real dedication.
Posted by: Rebecca | June 5, 2007 4:01 PM