First day on the job

Today was my first day as an intern at the Center for Social Action (El Centro). El Centro hosts different activities throughout the year to benefit members from low-income communities. This summer I will working with the summer school program as a teacher's aid with the 7th-12th grade group of students. Because the summer school program begins in two weeks, I will be working on organizing the office and calling parents over the next few days. Today I spent a couple of hours going through paperwork and discarding any documents that are no longer needed in order to create more space. The Center provides a lot of informational pamphlets about different organizations in the community that can be help with a variety of issues ranging from academic performance to domestic violence, but because there are so many pamphlets it becomes difficult to find the correct information. To help with this I spent the morning organizing and labeling paperwork to facilitate access. The second half of my day I called parents who have signed up their children for the summer school program, but who have not yet completed the application. I have noticed that many of the participating families do not speak English and rely on someone speaking Spanish in the office in order to be aware of the steps. I realized that if I didn't speak this second language, my tasks in the office would be heavily limited. I am looking forward to the rest of my first week at El Centro.