Baby Steps- Summer Associates

Working in the Okolona community this summer has been great! This is my hometown community and I've feel that the contributions that was given by me was from the heart. I've not only served at the BabySteps site but I've also served at the Okolona Elementary School, an early childcare center (Armstrong's Kiddie Care), and I've also been helping at the City Hall preparing for the Magnolia Festival, which is an event that the community always look forward.

BabySteps, has been my main site and it has been just wonderful! I've always known about BabySteps, being an Okolona native but I never fully understood the impact that the program has on this community. The program is just great! The children come, learn, interact, open up, and actually want to come back and learn. The parents are even excited to see the children doing well and enjoying themselves. The parents also have been very cooperative with the program and anything they have been asked to do. The challenge for working at BabySteps was to make sure that along with learning, the children were enjoying the program and would be ready to return on the next day. The experience in an overall was much more than I expected. I never knew my community had some many smart children eager to learn and so many parents that would make sure they were in a program that helped them to do that. It was absolutely a joy to work with the children. When children tug on your shirt in a store and say "Ms. Amber, remember what we did at Baby Steps or what are doing tomorrow at school?" It brings such a warm feeling to my heart and I know I've done a good deed.

The two summer associates that have been working with me, Mareo Bogan and Latisha Pickens, have also been great to work with. Although I've been knowing Mareo, when the summer program started it was my first time meeting Tish and now it is like we have all known each other all of our lives. Ms. Keisha Bogan, our VISTA leader in Okolona, has also been great, she dips in and out to check on us and gives us good feedback on our work.

Mr. Raspberry, a Pulitzer Prize winner and the founder BabySteps, recently died. It was a very sad time for the BabySteps staff, the parents that are involved in BabySteps, the schools, the daycares, and just the community as a whole. We came together and help BabySteps put together a memorial day on July 26 for him because his funeral was in Washington and most friends and community citizens could not make it. It was great listening to his friends reflect on the wonderful person he was and how he always had the child's education at heart. They told of how his vision was only first a dream and since he had moved to Washington and became a writer for The Washington Post they thought it would never come true. Mr. Raspberry made it come to life even after leaving his community; he still took the time to make sure he gave back. He did a remarkable thing, a brave act to follow his dream and never give up on it, even when he was already doing great things. I am proud that I was able to be a small part of his program/legacy because it has and hopefully will continue to be a HUGE asset to the children, parents, and families of the Okolona community.