Spotlight: UC Davis Aggies

Serving in ImpACT was not a hard decision to make; I have always liked kids and grew up taking care of my younger brother and cousins. However, I would not have thought that serving these young children in ImpACT would have such an effect as to be a cornerstone of growth for myself. Every Sunday I am reminded of the importance of having trust, especially when it is modeled by the way our girls trust us, their team leads. They show such attention to the things that we teach them. They take us seriously and learn from what we tell them, even when sometimes, I am not completely sure of what I am doing in a certain activity or the way that I am explaining something to them. I have noticed this growing trust with one of my girls. At first, she was one of our most quiet and reserved girls. She would only talk to one other girl in Chinese and not pay much attention to the activities. This distraction was because she had recently immigrated with her family from China. She was not very fluent in English, so she felt too insecure in participating and talking to the other girls and me. I understood how hard it was for her, so I had a hard time asking her over and over again to speak English. However, as time progressed I have seen her improve. She speaks English to all of us now, and I actually feel closer to her. Every time she arrives she greets me with a big hug. I find this so heartwarming and a bit funny, as we are about the same height but she is 11 years younger than I am. She understands the Joyland messages a lot better, and I know that she does seriously take in what she learns there. Part of this is shown in her drawings when she depicts values and characters that she is learning about. Seeing her growing together with the rest of the girls makes me glad to have taken part of the wonderful journey that is ImpACT.

–Diana