Hi everyone, this is Summy from the VIP group Beyond Tutoring on 12th Avenue blogging about the ups and downs of a semester and a half in Vanderbilt Interest projects.
When thinking over what our VIP has done for the past month, to be honest there's not a whole lot new to report. Various people in our group have continued going to tutor in the Edgehill community every Wednesday with the P-Team tutoring program from Crawford and Gillette Houses on the commons. As part of our group's vision to reach out to the underprivileged children and community of the Edgehill housing projects, we have signed up to volunteer with the Nashville Mobile Market. The Mobile Market is a Vanderbilt-student-run endeavor that launched last month aiming to provide fresh foods to "food deserts" in Nashville - places where residents can't get fresh food or produce and resort to eating unfresh, highly preserved, unhealthy food. Our group is anxious to get involved with the Nashville Mobile Market as soon as we can, which should be after Spring Break.
As for my reflections upon this year, VIP has definitely been a mixed bag for me. It has been great to get to know everyone in my VIP better and to work on group projects, improve our group dynamic, and learn about cooperation, leadership and teamwork in such a diverse group. On the other hand, it's been extremely frustrating for me to see our awesome vision at the beginning of the year left abandoned because of liability issues and legalities. We came into VIP with an action plan and a desire to form really close relationships with the children of the Edgehill community. We wanted to be positive role models, to provide a creative outlet every week for the children to learn about different parts of the globe and gain a broader perspective on the human experience. Instead, despite what I believe was a genuine desire to help and empower others, we haven't gotten to do these things. I hope that with the remaining few months we do have in VIP, we will work hard with the resources that we have to give back to Nashville. Even though my VIP experience didn't turn out the way we envisioned it, I believe that things worked out the way that they did in order to shift our focus into a different way to reach out - whether it's through the Nashville Mobile Market or going with a more established group during the week.
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