Summer Service Worker makes a difference in students’ lives through after-school program

Julie DeLuca
July 24, 2007

REEDLEY, Calif. – In the heat of the Californian sun, a group of middle school students passes a cow tongue. Students in another group toss a frozen chicken down a makeshift bowling lane toward soda bottle pins.

This imitation of the television game show Fear Factor develops students’ teamwork skills and promotes a summer program of Community Youth Ministries at General Grant Middle School.

This summer, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) summer service worker Julie Villasenor is site leader for the program, which provides enrichment activities for sixth- to eighth-grade students who attend Grant’s three-week long summer school.

“I love being able to make a difference in kids’ lives,” says Villasenor, a junior at Fresno Pacific University.

Youth who attend the program participate in sports, science projects, arts and crafts, dance, video production and guitar and piano lessons.

After the Fear Factor competition, students crowd around staff to flaunt the aluminum foil volcanoes they’ve shaped and decorated with paint. A staff member pours in vinegar and foam rises and flows down the sides of the volcanoes. Then they swarm together to pose for a group picture.

Through the after school program, Villasenor also wants to build the students’ awareness of gang violence, drugs, online predators and other dangers.

Sometimes Villasenor faces difficult youth who act out, but she believes there is always a reason behind their actions. In her view, they misbehave because they feel they cannot articulate their experiences in another way or anywhere else.

When she is not at the middle school, Villasenor thinks about the students and wonders if they are okay. “You want the best for these kids, to guide them to make right choices, and (then) you hope that they do.” When they do make good choices, it makes her efforts there worth it, she said.

Villasenor is inspired to do her best this summer and in her university work as she looks at the lives of her parents, who migrated from Mexico.

She and her brother will be the first in her immediate family to graduate from college with a four-year degree – an opportunity to give back to her parents for their hard efforts. “I feel blessed,” she said.

Working with the program at General Grant Middle School is a good experience for her, said Villasenor, a social work major. “This knowledge I learn here, I’m always going to use it.”