Oh goodness, how can it already have been a month since my last post?!?! I guess they weren’t kidding when they said time flies when you are having fun. So many great and exciting things have been happening at The Center. I would love to share with you everything that has happened in the last month, but that would get quite lengthy! So I will just give you a summary (and from now on, be better about posting more than once a month). I am going to pretend I am writing a summary for school of the first three chapters of The HALO Learning Center: A Memoir. J
Chapter 1 – Intro to Personal Finance with Jasmine Jacobs
Learn all you can about personal finance in this Introduction to Personal Finance workshop. Money matters will be exercised in a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game.
Jasmine Jacobs kicked off The HALO Learning Center with her Intro to Personal Finance workshop. We paired with the Youth Emergency Shelter at reStart, Inc. and had four youth participate in this one-time, one-hour workshop. Jasmine presented a slideshow covering all aspects of money. What is money, what is it used for, where can you keep your money, what all does a bank offer you? She taught about the different checking and savings accounts, credit/debit cards, and writing checks.
It was really cool to sit back and watch this workshop. The kids were really involved and engaged throughout the whole presentation. They answered questions and added their own stories. Some of the information presented was stuff they already ‘knew’ like how to fill out personal checks. But, then, when Jasmine passed out blank checks for them to practice filling out, they needed a bit of help. J
In the second half of the session, a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire game was played quizzing over personal finance facts.
I was very impressed with Jasmine. She was super organized and great at presenting and involving the kids. Personal Finance, while an essential life skill, may not always be the most exciting topic. Jasmine made it really fun and interactive; and the kids seemed to learn quite a bit!
Chapter 2 – Drumming with Nick and Nick
Please join for some drumming fun. There will be drumming, and smiling, and conversation.
The second workshop at The Center has been a 6 week long Drumming Workshop on Thursdays, run by Nick Santoro and Nick James; they are two drummers from our community. Nick and Nick have also brought in some other drummers from around Kansas City and KC’s Drum Tribe. This session has been very interactive, with lots of learning!
We partner with reStart, Inc.’s Youth and Family Emergency Shelter and usually have about 15 kiddos. We have bongo drums, tambourines, sticks, bells, wooden cowbells, hand drums – each Thursday begins with each kid familiarizing themselves with these noise makers. As you can imagine, the beginning three minutes, or so, are quite chaotic. Once all have become familiar with their newly acquired instrument, the learning begins. Nick and Nick and fellow drummers have done many different drumming exercises to teach beats, hearing the rhythm, etc.
There are so many cute stories I could share from our Thursday Drumming Nights, but I think I will just share an excerpt about one session from my journal:
Nick said “Just let your hands do what they want.” So the chaos begins. For about the next three and a half minutes my ears were filled with colliding/clashing/mismatch array of noise. I could faintly hear an assemblance of sound from the presenters and a few kids who had played a drum before, but that was stifled with the beautiful vulnerability of new hands. I can’t lie; I was a bit worried as to how the nest forty-six and a half minutes would unfold. After the beginning round, may I call it the test round, Nick guided us to do a circle song (this is what I am naming it). The circle song was really fun - one person starts making a beat and it begins to pick up around the circle. Each person is playing a different instrument: bongo drum, hand held drums, sticks, chairs, bells, tambourine, wooden cowbell. As each person adds in their beat, the song progresses and develops different layers of sound. This was really cool because you could hear how important each person was to making the whole song. And was equally reflected when we finished the circle song. One by one, each person quit making their sound, which also, effectively showed each person’s importance to the group.
Then Scott, as a treat to the ears and as an opportunity for our hands to rest, played us two beautiful songs on his saxophone. The first was a bluesy/jazzy song by a deceased saxophonist. In the first few seconds of the song, a young boy spoke up that he had heard this song before. Which Scott replied by saying, “Do you know the words?” He didn’t but his face did light up as soon as Scott began playing again. The boy smiled and nodded in agreement with himself that he had, in fact, heard the song before.
Later, at the end of the session, I got a moment to talk to this boy - where he taught me a thing or two. First, I asked him where he had heard the song before. “The Simpsons” He replied. I laughed. I sure didn’t expect that, so, I asked, “The Simpsons?” “Yeah,” he replied, “that short fat guy, he always plays the blues. He played it.”
Secondly, the boy questioned my ability to trust. He said, “ok I am gonna tell you something, but you are not going to believe it.” I replied with, “Ok, but should I believe it?” “I wasn’t born in the states.” “You weren’t, where were you born?” “South Africa.”
In fact, I do believe you, because your accent doesn’t lie. He was born in Africa and moved here when he was a babe.
Next Scott played a lovely tune that brought tears to my eyes – A Few of My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music.
Scott decided that two songs were enough, although my hands were still numb. Next up, was a four sectioned harmonious song. The room was divided into four separate groups, who were each taught a different beat. Each section began playing their beat and the room turned into a beautifully composed song. As the song grew stronger, the Nicks and Dingo and Jules added in their more complex beats.
The end of the song was my favorite part of the night. Dingo told us to play our beats as loud as we could. Everyone was banging out their piece to the puzzle of the song. I looked around the room and witnessed by both seeing and feeling the most beautiful and totally safe place of happiness. Every single person had either a huge smile on their face or were literally laughing out loud in joy. I felt a warm surge connecting my heart to the young boy next to me to the girl next to him continuing around the room; connecting reStart employees, young homeless children, HALO volunteers and almost adult homeless youth in an indescribable moment in time, a circle of love and freedom. It was like the loud music broke our outer shells open and had built a wall around the room, allowing each person in the room to enjoy pure creation and love.
Next Thursday is the last session in our Drumming Workshop. We have planned a performance for Friday, the 24th, at 7 pm, so that the children will have a chance to showcase what they have learned. Come by The Center from 4:30-7pm for an open house event, then stay to enjoy the performance at 7 pm!
Chapter 3 – Hair, Skin and Inner Beauty with Sarah Beck
Feel good in your own hair and skin. This workshop will teach you about the cosmetology- schools, scholarships and career choices. You will also learn some specific styling tricks and create your own styles on a friend’s head to compete in an Project Runway inspired competition. Strut your new do down the runway while performing a Feel Good in Your Own Hair and Skin dance/song.
Our third workshop began last week and will continue in two follow up sessions beginning next week.
This workshop is lead by Sarah Beck and is designed for the kids at Niles Home for Children. It began a basic hygiene, skin and hair care course as a part of Niles’ Six Week Girls Teen Survival program. Sarah met with about ten girls from Niles and began with talking about what it really means to be beautiful and about inner beauty. The girls had watched a Chris Rock documentary, Good Hair, the week before. So Sarah and the girls talked about the different messages in the movie, about being comfortable in your own skin and owning the beautiful qualities God gave you.
Next, Sarah talked more specifically about good care for hair and skin and what products are good to use and what ones to avoid.
During the session, one young girl started to sing, to a tune, what we were learning and another wanted to do a Good Hair dance. This gave Sarah and I an idea to incorporate into our next session with the girls.
Sarah had already planned for the next session to partly be about different styling skills and having each girl create her own runway hair style to be modeled in a Project Runway inspired competition. So we decided to add one more element- we are going to pair the girls off, where they will do each other’s hair. While creating their runway pieces, they will work together on creating a Inner Beauty/Good Hair song and dance. Once they have finished, each group of girls will perform their song/dance to the room and get to strut down the runway.
The half of this follow up session will focus on cosmetology. Sarah has gathered information about different schools here in Kansas City, about scholarship and financial aid options, and is going to talk about different career choices in the cosmetology field.
This session is next Wednesday, so look forward to an update J
