Cleaning the Place Up

Hello everyone! It has been quite a while since my last blog entry, so I figured I would update you all on some of the activities I have performed while at Sunflower Kids over the past several months. One of my latest volunteering activities was cleaning up around the main building of the organization. This included washing windows, putting away toys in the rooms in which parents visit with their children, and reorganizing a bookshelf. While this experience in and of itself was obviously not an overly taxing or moving one—the tasks I was responsible for completing included moving Barbie dolls from the “Action Figures” toy bin to the “Dolls” toy bin—just being in the offices of Sunflower Kids and seeing their operation run was a learning experience all on its own.

One of the visitation rooms that I cleaned

It is an odd experience to see a parent playing with his or her child and to know in the back of your mind that the parent you are watching was found guilty of doing something so harmful or disturbing that the only circumstances under which he or she is allowed to visit his or her own children is in a closely monitored and highly regulated environment. Interestingly enough, these parents did not look like the “abusive or substance abusing parent” stereotype would suggest. These people are human beings just like the rest of us, and they look like regular people. These people look like they could be someone’s next door neighbor or co-worker. I would wager that many of the acquaintances of these people are not even aware of the things these people do. This provides not only a lesson in not judging a book by its cover, but also a somber reminder that in many cases, you do not know as much about someone as you think you do, and you do not know what happens behind closed doors in a household of which you are not a member.