Ailsa Ferland

I attended the Spring Symposium to participate in the reflection for Impacto and Chavez Huerta Itliong Day, both of which I contributed a lot of time to in the past year. In addition to this thought-provoking discussion, I was able to participate in meaningful table talks during lunch and see the diverse ways my peers applied service to their interests during the student presentations. I felt this was a productive day; I was forced to turn inward and felt inspired to continue participating in service in the coming years.

Through Operacion Impacto, I worked at Woodrow Wilson High School this semester with immigrant students, primarily Spanish-speaking, in an English as a second language program. This was my second semester in this program and it was wonderful. I was able to see all of the progress the students from last semester had made and all the way up to the end of my service this semester was able to work with many new students as they continued to move to DC. As someone who is learning a second language, I find it very helpful when I can use my mother tongue for support when I am confused, and it was wonderful to be that resource for students who did not know any English to start and had to quickly learn to converse with and understand their teachers outside of the ESL program.

CHI Spring 2019. Between planning meetings (~18 hours), MLK day of service (~4 hours), rebooting our social media, creating marketing materials, and the actual celebration (~18 hours, Thursday and Friday), this semester was filled with dedication and teamwork that came to fruition in a beautiful celebration at the end of March. Juntos, si se puede!