Blog 13: 10 Hour Mentorship Check-In

1. Where are you doing your mentorship?

• I do my mentorship at James L. Brulte Senior Center in the city of Rancho Cucamonga.

2.   Who is your contact?  What makes this person an expert?

• My contact is my mentor Laurie Portillo. Laurie is in charge of the volunteers and also helps with events that the center has. She spends a lot of time with different senior citizens. And my favorite thing about her is that she loves her job, every time I see her, she always has a smile on her face. This shows me that she actually cares for the senior citizens and wants them to be happy at the center.

3.   How many  hours have you done during the school year? (Summer Mentorship Hours and Mentorship Hours should be reflected separately in your Senior Project Hours log located on the right hand side of your blog).

• So far, from what I have recorded I have 10.5 hours that I did during school and 20.16 hour that I did during summer, so in total I have 30.5 hours, 30 more to go!

4.   Succinctly summarize what you did, how well you and your mentor worked together, and how you plan to complete the remaining hours.

• What I do at the center is help in the gym, here I check that the seniors who come in have a card that tells me if they can be use the gym and the equipment. While doing this I get to talk to the seniors who come in and I notice the different kinds of seniors.
•  My mentor and I get along well, I can ask her anything with no problem. She's been very helpful with my senior project. 
• I plan on completing the rest of my hours by going to the center every Friday for three hours. This semester, the only time I went was when I didn't have school (expect the days I did this week), so I only did what I was required. I think if I try to go every Friday I will be able to complete more than 60 hours, which is what I want to do. 

Blog 2- Summer Mentorship

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

• Laurie Portillo
• (909) 477-2780 x8002
• James L. Brulte Senior Center

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?     

• She's in charge of the volunteers, she places volunteers in the positions they are interested in, she also helps with activities and events at the center. Since I want to focus on the activities that senior citizens can do, I knew that she would be perfect.  

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.    

• What kind of events do seniors like to attend?
• What's a well rounded activity that all seniors can do?
• How can we convince seniors to exercise?

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• I think the most important thing I gained from my experience was to see that any senior can workout no matter their age or condition, yes they have limits but they can still do something. I think by knowing this I can look at a my topic in a new way now, maybe instead of thinking of activities for them to do maybe I focus on how to get others to join, or maybe both. It gave me a new idea.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

• My senior project is going to be about what activities senior citizens can do and how to get them to do it. My mentorship helped me make my decision by making me realize that anyone can do it, not just the young health seniors. I know lots of people don't care about their health until something happens and that was the case for a lot of the seniors in the center. I want to help them not go because the doctor tells them to, I want them to go because they realize they need to exercise to stay healthy. 

My lovely mentor.

The gym where I helped at.