Public Speaking-Albany Helping Hands-"Home for the Holidays"

Paul Barnes, Executive Director of
 Albany Helping Hands Homeless Shelter

Albany Helping Hands Executive Director, Paul Barnes stated, "Albany Helping Hands, I want you guys to carry out of here a vision in your mind that it's not just a building, it's just not a location, a thrift store or a garden market, it's these people."

The point of this event is to make the community aware of Albany Helping Hands and what it is doing for our homeless community. 

The program "Home for the Holidays" was discussed, which is a community wide event for members of the community and churches who want to support the work of Albany Helping Hands and also attend a seasonal event. It is held on Thanksgiving Eve every year.  This year was the "Sixth Annual Home for the Holidays".

The First Assembly of God church located at 2817 Santiam Hwy SE, Albany, OR 97321 provided the meeting location for this event.  It was held Wednesday evening at 7:00 pm, November 24th, 2011.

The crowd gathered in pews facing the stage were pleasant, gentle and helpful.   Consisting of mostly middle age residents of Albany Helping Hands Homeless Shelter, supporters of Albany Helping Hands and some of the church staff and supporters.

The Albany Helping Hands organization is Christian based and founded on the love of fellow humanity. Many of the homeless have become part of the staff at Albany Helping Hands.

Between speakers there was Dan Hartman, who entertained us by singing and playing guitar.  He is a very talented individual.  Everyone seemed to enjoy his entertainment.  Barnes enjoyed it so much he even requested an additional song.

Pastor Bill Lane, Albany Helping Hands board member,  also scontributed the comment, "Attitude is gratitude." Which fit well with the context of this event.

This year alone, Albany Helping Hands has helped 1,350 individuals that needed help, establishing 80 of these individuals into their own, stable, living environments.

The guests at the shelter donated 60,000 hours of their time volunteering.  They also have a program within Albany Helping Hands called TOPS (Training Opportunity Program) that helps build job skills and self-esteem.


Links:

www.albanyhh.org

www.albanyfirstassembly.org

http://storage.cloversites.com/albanyfirstunitedmethodistchurch


At a glance:

Who: Paul Barnes, Executive Director of Albany Helping Hands

What: Albany Helping Hands Homeless Shelter

When: Wednesday evening at 7:00 pm, November 24th, 2011

Where: 2817 Santiam Hwy SE, Albany, OR  97321

Why: Home for the holidays program


Contact Information for those in need:

Albany Helping Hands Homeless Shelter
Location: 619 Ninth Ave. SE, Albany, OR  97322-3210
Mailing address: P.O. Box 2252, Albany, OR  97321-0606
Phone: (541) 926-4036
Fax: (541) 928-6403

Profile Story

Deanna Barclay

Claim to fame:  Lead Preschool Teacher

Harriet Hedgcoth

Preschool Teacher/Driver

Periwinkle Child Development Center, located on the LBCC Campus, is now a full Headstart Program.  The merge of LBCC and Headstart is a wonderful combination. A majority of LBCC students' children qualify for the Headstart program, so having day care on campus is highly beneficial to the students and the children.   

The center is available from 9am to 3pm, Monday through Friday.  There is now cost for the Headstart program, it's not a traditional day care that you pay monthly dues.  However, your family has to meet certain income guidelines for your child to qualify.

The college actually called Headstart and invited them. The Headstart Program merged with Periwinkle to make it into a Lab School, which is when the students with education majors do observations from the observation room and also work with the children in the classroom. They’re here to learn how to get along with the kids, how to be a teacher, things that work and don’t work, and they also do activities with the children.  The teachers, aids and students are constantly interacting with the kids, getting down to their level, playing and reading on the floor together.
 
Although Deanna is the head teacher, they have never really had “titles” in the classroom, "just teachers". Ultimately, Deanna takes care of the supervisor duties.

Q.  Where did you attend college? 

A.  Harriet:  I started here at LBCC then became dually enrolled with OSU, so I graduated from OSU.  A.  Deanna:  Chemeketa Community College. 

Q.  Why did you choose to teach at LBCC or is it through the Headstart program? 

A.  Deanna:  Through Headstart, I had gotten a job with them for the first time. 

A.  Harriet:  Ya, the same for me.

Q.  How long have you been in the field? 

A.  Harriet:  I’ve been doing this professionally for about three years,  then I’ve had my own kids and ran my own day care in my home.  So, I’ve done it  professionally within Headstart for about three years, actually two years, sorry.  Then, I worked at this particular center before, at the Periwinkle Center.  So I did my practicants here and I worked as a substitute teacher for about three years and then at home I, gosh, ten to 15 years at home while my kids were young when I ran my own day care.  A.  Deanna:  I’m going on my 21^st year.  I started up in Salem , I worked at Chemeketa Community College, I did Headstrart up in Salem, then I worked at South Albany Child Development Center, then here!

Q.  What inspired you to work with young children? 

A.  Harriet:  I’ve always had a passion to help  young children, especially in the early years, the formidable years.  So they would have a good foundation, a solid foundation that would help them throughout their years and to just help kids to grow and be strong and to have a good outcome. 

A.  Deanna:  It’s something that I’ve always done.  When I was a teenager my parents adopted my nephew and so I’ve always been taking care of someone.  It just came natural and easy for me.  It was fun!  It was something that I always had interest in learning.  Every time I take one class it gets me interested in what is coming next; like how the brain functions and how this is our future.  This is the most important thing that someone could do, taking care of someone else's children.

Q.  What is your favorite thing about being a preschool teacher? 

A.  Deanna:  Every day is different.  You never know what each day is going to bring, so every day is exciting and it is fun!  If you’re not having fun then your kids see it, it’s really important always have fun in everything. 

A.  Harriet:  That’s it too, the fun aspect, having fun.  And like what you said, the challenges that comes with it, for me, it’s exciting to watch the kids learn and grow and how much they change over the course of the year.  Where they start at this level (holding hand low) and then they end up at this level (raising hand up high)  and it’s so amazing to watch them learn and grow.  Deanna:  The looks on their faces when they do something new and they actually did it by themselves for the first time and just the shock and the surprise and are so happy.  They can’t help but to make us happy. 

At a glance:

Who:  Deanna Barklay and Harriet Hedgcoth

What:  Preschool Teacher
When:  Weekdays from 9am-3pm
Where:  Periwinkle at LBCC (Kidco Headstart)
Why:  Daycare to help students
How:  State and Federal funding, volunteers and fund raisers

Links:

www.kidcoheadstart.org

www.naeyc.org

www.nhsa.org

 

Blog #2 / Media & Society

 I chose the movie "Trespass" for this blog project.   I chose this movie because it looked like an exciting movie and I like both of the main actors.

This movie was directed by Joel Schumacher, a couple of other films he is known for are Phone Booth (2002) and Phantom of the Opera (2004).

The lead actors in this film are:

- Nicolas Cage, also known as Nicholas Kim Coppola, changed his name early in his career to make his own reputation. He is the son of August Coppola (comparative literary professor) and brother of Francis Ford Coppola (Director).

-Nicole Kidman, known as one of Hollywood's top Australian imports, was actually born in Hawaii. The daughter of Anthony (biochemist and clinical psychologist) and Janelle (Nursing Instructor) Kidman. The family moved to Washington, D.C. where Nicole's father persued his research on breast cancer.

This movie is about a family that is held for ransom in their own home. During their whole ordeal the couple, husband (Cage) and his wife (Kidman), are discovering betrayal and deception through all of it.

 

This film is similar to a lot of the other work by Nicolas Cage, he plays in movies like this that are full of suspense.  Nicole Kidman plays in a wide variety of films, this particular film seemed to me to be one of her more "normal" roles meaning she is just a wife and there is nothing deceiving or supernatural about her. 

This film goes right along with the current genre.  We all love suspense!  The movie plot was intriguing, but Cage and Kidman have definately had better performances.

This piece of culture shows how ruthless people can be.  It shows how deceptive people can be, even the people the closest to you and how we will betray anyone that gets in the path of our sinful desires.

My interpretation of this film is showing us that we will do anything for or against our family and so-called loved ones.  On the other hand, it shows how we will do anything for money, status or just our own pleasure.  It also instills the loyalty that some of us have and never let go of.

Our Society loves this kind of excitement.  Our culture is notorious for this kind of violent, deceptive kinds of interests.  We are a culture of pushing everything to the extremes.

The strengths of this movie are the actors and the thrilling plot.  It's similar to other work done by the actors and is enjoyable entertainment, but I don't think it's the best work they've ever done.  Some of the professional critiques think this was a moderately good movie, but nothing outstanding.  Roger Ebert gave this movie a moderate review.

I like Nicolas Cage and watch and enjoy most of his movies.  I thought it was a moderately good movie, but nothing spectacular.  My boyfriend watched it with me and he liked it and said the action and suspense was there, but thought the plot had been done many times before.  I checked out reviews on other films Nicolas Cage has done, most of which I was familiar with.

After watching the movie and reading the reviews I found that everyone has a wide variety of opinions.  I have never researched and reviewed a movie before, so this was a new experience for me.  I didn't realize all of the different cites that are available for review and critiques.

Links:

www.RogerEbert.com

www.imdb.com

www.metacritic.com