Welcome to our blog!

The purpose of this blog is to document our time spent volunteering at Sunflower Kids. Sunflower Kids is a non-profit organization that provides visitation services to victims and high-risk individuals who have been affected by domestic violence in its many forms. 

We hope you enjoy our blog as much as we have enjoyed serving this organization! 

Meet the volunteers:

Shelby Blakeman: Shelby is a communications major here at UK. She has enjoyed the service aspect of this course & had a lot of fun serving the organization. In her free time, she enjoys drinking coffee, exploring downtown Lexington, & spending time with family!

Taylor Scott: Taylor is a chemical engineering major. Her favorite part about her experience with Sunflower Kids was learning to appreciate any form of volunteering work, no matter how small the task seemed. She loved being able to help out this amazing organization. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, watching Grey's Anatomy, and going to the gym.

Shelbi Broeking: Shelbi is double majoring in biology and English. She loves to write poetry and fiction in her free time. She is a concert addict and loves music as much as she loves tea. Sunflower Kids has been an excellent opportunity for her to learn about a different type of volunteering organization than she was used to. Overall, she has really enjoyed her CIS class this semester.

Jordyn Tipsword: Jordyn is a Psychology major and is double minoring in Spanish and Criminology. She loves watching primetime TV, running, and spending as much time as possible with her family when she visits home in Michigan. Her favorite part about volunteering with Sunflower Kids was seeing the joy-filled interaction between parents and their children on visitation day.

Hunter Stiff: Hunter is a Neuroscience major and is minoring in History at UK. His favorite part about volunteering at Sunflower Kids was feeling like he is a part of something bigger than himself, and having the opportunity to do this volunteering as a part of the course was one of his favorite things about this course. He enjoys watching and playing hockey, soccer, and basketball; spending time with his family; and hanging out with his friends.

Sunflower Kids: Final Reflection

Reflection on Service: Sunflower Kids!

My final video reflection. Overall, it was a good experience!

Reflection

Though I am still working on my final service hours, here is my video reflection about Sunflower Kids. Despite the more challenging aspects of scheduling, it was an interesting experience overall!

Final Reflection Video

Cleaning Up Sunflower Kids

In my video, I talk about cleaning the visitation rooms for Sunflower Kids. 

I sanitized all of the kitchen toys in each room, since kids tend to put their mouth on them frequently.

Reflecting on My Experience with SFK!

 

In this video reflection, I talk about a lot of my final thoughts concerning my time with Sunflower Kids. Despite the challenges of transportation and scheduling, I feel like the overall experience was very rewarding because of the happy and amazing moments I got to see while volunteering. It was a great first exposure to service learning, and I definitely feel like I'm walking away from my volunteering there with a lot of important knowledge!

Thoughts on Service Learning Courses

                  I went to Sunflower Kids to volunteer again on Wednesday, October 11. I only have one more visit, and then I am finished with my service hours. It has been a great experience to volunteer at Sunflower Kids. During my visit, I cleaned the visitations rooms.

Visitation room that I cleaned while at Sunflower Kids

Since I have already discussed cleaning in my other blog posts, I thought I would share my thoughts about service learning courses in this blog post.

            

           I really like the idea of service learning courses. I was very involved with community service in high school, and I wanted to continue this in college but knew that it would be harder. Before this course, I wasn’t familiar with the organizations around Lexington that would be great places to volunteer. However, this course has introduced me to several amazing organizations. Not only Sunflower Kids, but I have learned about other organizations from reading other blog posts. All of these organizations are great, and this course has opened the door for me to stay involved in the community even after the course ends. I feel like many students are like me and want to be involved but weren’t sure how because they weren’t familiar with Lexington; I think service learning courses are a great way to get students on the right path for volunteering.

            

           Having a service learning organization also makes the course work more meaningful. A lot of the assignments in this course deal with our service learning organizations. For example, instead of just writing an argument essay about domestic violence, I was able to first-hand learn about domestic violence victims from Sunflower Kids. This made the essay a lot more interesting, and I was able to see how the societal issue directly affects me and what I can do to help fix the issue. What we learn in this class will extend far beyond when the class ends. Working with a service learning organization helps shape us as people and hopefully inspires us to continue to lend a helping hand.

Service learning courses open the door for continued community service.

 

           

           As you can see, my service learning experience with Sunflower Kids has been positive and has given me a positive outlook on service learning courses as a whole. I am very grateful for the values and work ethic that volunteering at Sunflower Kids has instilled in me and not having class on most Fridays hasn’t been too bad either!

                      

Cleaning Up (Again)!

Okay people, now I know that this blog has been pretty crazy so far, but this post is about to be absolutely SHOCKING. I would strongly encourage sitting down before reading this one. This weekend while I was volunteering at Sunflower Kids, I... I cleaned up the back room. I know, take a minute to catch your breath. 

The Cleaning Supplies Closet

I mopped up the floors with a Swiffer mop and used a broom head and a dust pan to clean up solid things that would not be mopped up by the Swiffer. It was intense.

 

I would have taken a picture of the cleaning pad on the bottom of the Swiffer mop,
but I would have had to include a NSFW tag. It was that bad.

In all seriousness, I understand that cleaning up around an office is not exactly the sort of activity that builds life experience, nor is it precisely what I anticipated spending most of my time doing during my volunteering time when I first signed up to volunteer at Sunflower Kids. By no means, however, do I think it is not worth the time and effort, nor do I regret my decision to volunteer at Sunflower Kids. While the work there may be seen as trivial or unimportant, I feel as if I am one of many parts of the well-oiled machine that is Sunflower Kids, and the fact that I am helping to take care of things like cleaning allows for the older and more experienced people there to use their time doing more impactful things, things that improve lives and help bring families together. Time and energy are both invaluable resources, and by contributing both of those to the cause, I am effectively helping Sunflower Kids to keep their doors open and continue to provide a safe environment for court-ordered visitations, even if I do not directly work with the families in any direct capacity. Sunflower Kids is an organization that fights the good fight, and no matter what they have me do, I am proud to be a part of them.

Cleaning SFK Up a Bit



I had PLENTY of cleaning supplies
to choose from and use!



I volunteered at Sunflower Kids again today! This time, instead of filing or helping with administrative stuff like I did during my last visit, I worked on cleaning the break room, which serves as both a kitchen and a side entrance to SFK. I cleaned the windows and the door and also wiped down the tables and counters, which actually took far longer than I expected it to since some of the kids had stored their arts and crafts projects in there earlier in the week, which meant that the tables were sufficiently dirty and were covered in dried glue.



I spent a lot of time scrubbing tables
with Lysol wipes (and you can
even see the glue in the background)!

I also had to empty trashcans both in the bathrooms and throughout the building. Then, once I was done with all of my cleaning duties, I helped to haul trash bags (as well as a broken chair, oddly enough) out to the dumpsters in the parking lot. Once I was done with all of this, I was free to go!



One of the most interesting aspects of this particular volunteering experience, however, actually had nothing to do with my cleaning duties. Since I was in the break room most of the time, I was also there when a new round of visitations started. This meant that, right before new visitations began, I had the opportunity to watch one of the SFK employees carry out an exchange between two parents who, presumably, could not do the exchange themselves due to a protection order or other court mandate. Since the break room is also home to SFK’s side entrance, the employee was able to run out and take the child from one parent’s car and bring them into the building, where they were reunited with the other parent.

This was a particularly cool experience to watch not only because it was interesting to see how SFK managed to keep the parents separated, but also because I had wondered about how the exchange process would work since our first informational meeting back in September. While it was sad to think about the possible reasons why the exchange may have had to happen this way, it was certainly interesting to see how these situations are handled because it gave me a far greater insight into how SFK facilitates supervised visitation services in a safe way for both the children and the parents.



Overall, I had an informative and interesting time at Sunflower Kids, as per usual! Even though my official duties only involved cleaning tables and emptying trashcans, I feel like I learned a lot by simply observing what went on within the building. I’m excited to go back for my final volunteering session later this week, and I’m definitely grateful for the time I’ve spent at Sunflower Kids!




Cleaning Sunflower Kids

I finally was able to schedule a second volunteering date for Sunflower Kids. This past Wednesday, I made the journey to Sunflower kids with Morgan Blair (who is in the other section of CIS volunteering at the same organization). He and I immediately began work when we got there—we wasted no time at all!

Sunflower Kids Decorated for Thanksgiving

            We worked together to clean the visitation rooms. We began by wiping down all of the surfaces—including tables and chairs. Then, we proceeded to diligently vacuum the floor all over. After this, we decided to be thorough. We dumped out all of the bins of toys and wiped them with disinfecting wipes, as well. We paid special attention to the “kitchen food” toys, because children tend to put their mouths on these toys especially. It was evident they needed cleaning from the looks of our wipes when we were finished! When we finished cleaning all of the toys, we sorted them back into their appropriate bins and organized the shelves.

            While we were working, I learned some interesting information about the process of visitation at Sunflower Kids. Morgan had volunteered on a Sunday, a day when visitations usually take place. The parents are brought into the visitation room, where the kids are. A volunteer of Sunflower Kids staff member sits outside of the visitation room, monitoring the interaction. When the visitation is over, the parent is only allowed to leave once the child is off the premise—taken out through the back door.

One of the rooms Morgan and I cleaned!

            Also, while we were working, I noticed all of the neat toys and activities that the children could partake in during visitation.

There was a TV in each room, some with movies and wii games, even! There was an extensive collection of toys, and one of the rooms even had a basketball goal. I could imagine the children playing and having fun in these rooms.

In fact, after visiting Sunflower Kids for a second time, I found myself hoping to be able to monitor or volunteer during a visitation session. I think it would be extremely interesting to see the process take place for myself!

Cleaning & Decorating for Sunflower Kids!

Last Tuesday my decorating & cleaning skills were put to the test as I volunteered at Sunflower Kids. 

When I arrived, there was a big bucket of Thanksgiving/ Fall decor waiting for me. I spent the first hour of my time decorating windows with fall themed stickers. Acorns, leaves, trees, & pumpkins covered the glass by the time I was finished! It was a fun, oddly therapeutic activity that I enjoyed. As a college student, I spend so much time in front of the screen that its nice to get a break & do something that does not require thinking! 

Fun fall tinsel!

Fall Garland

The stickers I put up!

I then hung up leafy garland & fun orange tinsel. I love all things related to interior decorating & especially decorating for the seasons, so this was a perfect activity for me to do! I also arranged some fun acorn garland around the office. 


I finished decorating while the director was still in a meeting, but I still had an hour left to volunteer. I saw a vacuum laying out along with a broom, so I decided to start sweeping. This was a good lesson for me- to see something to be done & do it- without being told specifically. I swept the whole office, & then started vacuuming. I vacuumed each of the vistitation rooms & lobby area! When I finished that, I organized the rooms individually. I also wiped down countertops, organized some of the table tops, & helped clean the bathroom!

Overall, my experience was a great one! I had fun cleaning & decorating. I enjoy both of these things & I liked being able to do something I liked while contributing to a great cause. It was nice to volunteer in a calm, quiet environment where I could relax while helping out! I am looking forward to going back tomorrow!