My name is Maille Smith, a u11Orange1 player, and I participated in the Soccer Leadership Program 2013-14. At the end of the program we were asked to do a community service project. For my part, I decided to give back to my old school Gingerbread, by offering to work in a few of the classrooms that I first attended school at age 4. I offered to work on my 4 half days off from 5th grade in November when we had conferences. I was given the opportunity to work side by side with some of my old teachers, who welcomed me back with smiles. It was very fun. They put me to work aiding in projects, setup and indoor play, reading, teaching, outside play, and clean up. My old teachers appreciated that I was there to help and were very nice. The kids were pretty wonderful too. I met and played with two French red-headed twins who are 3 years old and who didn’t speak much English! Lots of the little girls loved to play with me, which made me feel great about helping. I also was able to read to them and they actually listened to my entire story! I found that no matter what I did each ½ day I worked, I had fun and was helpful to others but it really challenged me to build my patience, negotiation and communication skills.
I loved working at Gingerbread and am scheduling more volunteer work there in February/March 2014 on my ½ days with school!
