SOLFUL: Garnet District

By Kimi Iwai

Being a part of SOLFUL this past summer was a great experience. For six weeks, I spent my Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:00A.M.-12:00P.M. working with the "Community Action Committee" of the Garnet District. We had approximately forty children from Kindergarten to sixth grade signed up. From the very beginning the children were so sweet and inviting to all the volunteers. I remember one day three kids came up to me and offered me half of their sandwich during snack time. That was just the start of how they expressed their love to us.

By the second week the children had come up with their own game. One kid would yell out the name of a volunteer and they would all come running towards that volunteer like a herd of zebras and knock him or her down. This turned out to be a ritual every Wednesday that none of us could escape, but we all enjoyed.

God opened my eyes and showed me a key aspect of life through these children. They taught me the value of time. For example, these kids didn't care what activities we had prepared for them, all they wanted and seemed to enjoy was 'time'. Time for someone to listen to their thoughts and ideas and time to just "hang-out" with us. In the end, I felt that the children had blessed my life more than I had blessed theirs.