Another volunteering experience

This is follow up activity prior to my first volunteering activity, again it was for organization called "maisto bankas". I already knew what I want to do and what I will experience, but again everything exceeded my expectations. This event was for gathering food for poor and I really like the idea behind it.
Everything about this activity is wonderful. I worked together with great people to achieve a goal. Doing it I helped a one big global issue - hunger.
These kind of activities means a lot for me, since I am generous person and seeing somebody suffer to extent, that they can;t afford food, makes me uneasy and doing it I grew as a person more and everything was wonderful.
This activity, like the one before, had was of a great value and importance to me. I worked with determined people again, overcome the difficulty of the food gathering, helped to end a global issue, and learned a few things myself, that will help me to develop as a person more in the future. Volunteering rocks!!

By Gediminas Pažėra

Hundred days left celebration for the whole school

This event is similar to the one I had a few months before, but this event scale is much more bigger. Actually, I really waited for this event and wanted to participate in it, because When I was in 9h, 10th grade I always saw this beutiful event in the school and I wanted to be a part of it. This year I had a chance and I am really happy about it, it was a wonderful experience.
I done a lot of things in this event. I was the decoration maker, painter, decorator, and etc. But the most important thing, that I had done,I organized my own activity. It was chemistry experiment lab and I planned for this activity for months. Basically, I purposed the idea of it, when we were brainstorming activities for the event, and they accepted it, so I founded people who would help me and I done it.
After I event, I can say that everything, the preperations, actual event were wonderful and life changing. I now understand many things. I never thought that making an event of this scale is that hard and that to organize something yourself could be this new and at the times strange. However, I overcomed every problem I faced and succeded to be a part of the event. Of course, I was more easy when I worked with my friend and new met students.
I will always remember this event as a really great experience that taught me alot. Know I know how to deal with many different problems, how to work with other, how to organize something, and now I know a few areas how I can grow. For example, my painting skills are not the best. Ok, I'm joking, but still everything about this activity was perfect and I hope I will have a similar event again.

By Gediminas Pažėra

 





 

Hundred days left celebration for IB 2

There is an annual event that we have in our school, that is called "Šimtadienis", this can we translated to something like Hundred days left celebration. Actually, we have 2 of these celebrations in our school, one for IB, because their exams starts earlier that our national curriculum students's exams, and one for our whole school I always knewed about this event, but I wasn't really hyped when we needed to organize it. I expect a bad experience and wasted time, but overall it was fun and I didn't expect it to be a wonderful experience.
For this event there weren't many prepatations, the whole work was for brainstorming ideas, so my role was to help others with succeding the ideas. Whole prepatations and event was really cool, since I had a chance to communicat and work together with my classmates. It could be said that this event brought us more together than before and know I see this event as great celebration for the last year students.
The main values from this activity for me were doing something fun and good for our friends from IB 2, mastering "the art" of working with my friends, and realization that I need to think more about these kind of events and start actually to help with the creative aspects of it.

By Gediminas Pažėra

a similar event for us, and that it will be as good as our was.

Really cool, interesting and challenging project.

My IB classmate suggested in our Facebook group his idea of a new project. Basically, we, a group of students, will go to a kindergarten and just read them fairy tales. Seems easy, however it is more challenging that I though it would be. Of course, without any questions and investigations I signed in and our organizer found 2 kindergartens who would accept us and we started our project. Up until now we are doing weekly fairy tail telling. Actually, one of the hardest part was to do it weekly. I am kind of a lazy person and do to something consistently and same every week is not for me and I saw that this was actually my biggest weakness. However, i didn't loose myself in the moment and with a hard effort i done it consistently. I showed perseverance and commitment. It was hard at first, but gradually it became easier. I was kind of impressed that I could do it. I found also that it helped me to how commitment with other tasks and I realized that it is really important if you want to succeed somewhere. With this new insight I done a lot since then towards my personal skills and goals. Also, doing this project I developed some new skills. The most important one is communicating with children. It was a shock and appeal for me to go there for the first time, because it is hard to deal with a whole room of kids. However, I still showed perseverance and step by step learned to attract their attention, listen to them and etc. This activity also helped me to increase me fluently when telling or reading something, in this case fairy tales. It was always a problem of mine and I didn't have any practice to deal with up until now. So now I'm more confident with speaking to a larger group of people. Talking with kids actually does a lot of good things for you, however it's harder when speaking with children, because no kindergarten would let us in if we didn't were ethical. This means, we needed not to use any curse words or say anything that would result in 'infection' of a child brain. It was hard for everybody, but we were in groups of 2 people, so if someone almost stepped out of the line, the other one could catch him and save him, so we didn't have a problem with it. Actually, working together with a partner is really interesting and you get to know your mate and broaden your connection with him. At first, it was hard to collectively tell a story and to do it in an interesting way, but after some time it was done almost perfectly. Nevertheless, it was an interesting project to take a part in. Also, it showed me my artistic, because you won't 'sell' the story if you won't do it creatively and with your heart.

The best way to meet the holidays.

My IB classmate Lina thought a wonderful idea and made it into a extraordinary project. It's a project where people cook cookies with children in kindergarten and then send them to foster homes to children who doesn't have parents. I was excited from the start and the project didn't let me down. It was a wonderful experience, not only that you make someones holidays better, but also you get a lot from it for yourself. It all started from arrival to the kindergarten and meeting the kids with whom whe are going to cook cookies. They were really excited and it was really great to work in group with them and also a partner to make something really nice from only flour, eggs, sugar and other ingredients. It actually showed my that I could make something myself and I learned a really nice recipe for tasty cookies and how to make them. In the future I won't fear cooking cookies myself and even show someone else how to do it. Also, what I liked from this project is the deepness of the thought that is made. A lot of children doesn't have parents and it's an issue in the world. So, if someone thinks about them, wishes good holidays and even brings them a pack of cookies, I would say it not only would bring pleasure to their stomach, but also to their heart, and these small things could a lot. So again, it's  a wonderful project and if I had chance to do something similar again, I would do it.

ANNUAL PIE DAY!!!!

It's one the best events in the school and IB classes organize it exclusively. It's an event in which people brings their home-made pies and sell them for other people. The money gathered from trades is being donated to a charity organization, this year it was ,,Blue and yellow'' - an organization that have a goal to help Ukraine with needed help. It was really cool event and I thought it that it will be from the start, however I didn't participate as much as I could have. I only helped with those jobs that needed labor. Like helping to move the desk needed for trading or making decorations and decorating for the event. However, I still felt like participating in the event. I work with other people to make something wonderful and I got that. Maybe I would participate more in next year's event maybe not, but for sure I will go there and buy a lot pie of pieces of pie and in that way I donate for the charity. Also, the pies are yummy!!

My first volunteering activity.

I had never done any volunteering at all. It always seemed strange me. However, I needed to something for CAS so I decided to try it. Fortunately for me, there was a presentation of organisation called ,,Maisto Bankas'' in my school. Their goal is to gather food to help the poor and increase awareness of poverty in Lithuania. They accept the food all through the year, but they do a few big food gathering events through out the year and one was coming. They encouraged us to take a part in it. I thought, why not! So there, my first experience. Since it was my first experience doing something with volunteering I hoped that it will show my strongs and weaknesses when promoting to help the poor. I found out myself to be a strong promoter. There were 2 main jobs to do: hand out flyers and increase awareness of the food gathering event and gather food from people and thank them for their support. I did both jobs and handing out flyers was a hard task. You see people coming through you and you see all their reactions towards you and those reactions sometimes are even angry. So it was hard, but I didn't backed off and strongly, with a great spirit, shouted ,,Donate to the poor!''. I found a  new side of myself and next time I will feel more confident, knowing that I can do it. And also, I wasn't alone. Of course, who could let a teenager like me handle things? Well, I could, but this was not the case. I had a coordinator and there were 3 more volunteers at my shift of the event. We all worked collectively and I found it actually kind of easier to stand together and shout, or sit and gather food with other people. It wasn't hard for me, actually it was pleasing. It was even more easier when I know that all people that came here today are good people who sees a problem in this community, country, world - poverty. I foresaw this myself, that I would helping to eradicate one of the main problem of the world. This actually boosted my confidence and I felt that actually I was doing something to prevent this and it made my feel nice when I saw people actually coming and donating food and to actually be at the side who tries to help poor people is the best feeling. I had a wonderful experience doing my first volunteering activity and I experienced and learned a lot. Also, I met new people and had a great time and I would recommend everyone to do this!