A group of AYLUS Pearland volunteers helped LSA’s SMILE project multiple times each week in July. The project was organized and hosted by Light and Salt Association. SMILE, an abbreviation of “Self Advocacy, Moving towards good health, Independent living skills, Living basic job skills, and Emotional regulation skills,” is a day program for people with special needs to learn independent living and basic job skills, along with getting trained on social skills.
Because the program is normally taught by adult teachers, some of the special needs campers were nervous when they saw so many unfamiliar, younger faces. AYLUS volunteers started chatting with them about their interests and hobbies and even asked about the campers’ artwork hung on the walls. After 2 sessions, the campers got more comfortable and happily greeted their peer buddies every time when the volunteers arrived. Volunteers sat next to each camper throughout the day to help them with art, vocabulary, reading, crafts, and more activities. They also designed a special stretching session to encourage the campers to exercise and move around. Several volunteers who knew karate also performed for the campers. Over the course of 4 weeks, the campers have developed close relationships with AYLUS volunteers. It was a rewarding experience for both volunteers and campers.
Light and Salt Association will provide a letter to certify the following volunteers’ service:
Chen Wang, Jiaqi Ren, Alexander Sun, William Sun, Alvin Zheng, Jordan Zheng, Winnie Jiang, Wendy Yin, Clara Gu, Leo Jiang, Ray Huang, Alex Dai, Tianyu Wu, Yuanjie Zou, Iris Yang, Boyu Wu, Erica Gao, Jerry Tong, Elizabeth Hu, Dayou Wu, Youcheng Zhou, Callie Meng, Yifan Wang, Zide Liu, Leetyan Chen, Derek Zhu, Erick Zhang, Kara Li, Aila Jiang.
Reported by Alvin Zheng
