Anna, Sophie, Ryann, Reggi and I all volunteered at a Christmas event at St.Brigids with Children’s Scholarship Fund as a joint effort between the educational inequity and the children in poverty groups. Anna, Sophie and I took the bus across town and arrived in front of the school where we met Reggi. Ryann was already inside serving breakfast to the people coming in. We were assigned to the arts and crafts table. Since everyone was eating, not many people were coming. Anna and I were in charge of the paper snowflakes. A little girl came and sat down and Anna taught her how to make a round paper snowflake. Reggi was assigned to a raffle they were holding that was giving out gift cards. After a while of uneventful paper snowflake making, all the little kids where called to go sit on Santa’s lap. Ryann almost had to be Mrs.Claus, but another woman stepped in at the last minute. The first girl in line headed to the arts and crafts table after talking to Santa. She headed to my new station, candy cane ornament making. You would string white and red beads onto a pipe cleaner, I spent at least an hour with her while she was slowly stringing on the beads. We talked about school and she told me she went here, she told me that when I was done I should go see her classroom door and the snowman she made for it. By the time she had finished other volunteers were passing out hot chocolate, she spent a couple minutes not wanting to leave the table. She gave her new ornament to her mom and told me about exactly where she would put it on her tree at home. She also spent a couple of minutes talking about the lanyards that hung between us and the dining area. They were in a pattern of cut out pictures, Santa, reindeer, sleigh, repeat. She pointed to the ones that were messed up, whether it was the pattern was wrong or one had fallen off in the commotion of the morning. She had to leave around lunch time, we said goodbye and she put on her coat. There was another special activity where all the little kids went to the stage part of the room. Some older kids did a quickly made dance to a Christmas song, and then invited the little kids to join them in dancing. They danced to maybe one Christmas song before switching to the whip. Afterwards I moved to the side of the table with the last few dwindling kids, Nya, Bella and Jay Jay (Jackson). Jay Jay went to St.Brigids, but Nya and Bella went to Success Academy, Williamsburg and Hell’s Kitchen respectively. I thought about how lucky they were to have an opportunity to attend a charter school, even though they can be excessively strict, they are really one of the better options for these kids. One of them was Jay Jay’s sister and the other was his cousin, it was unclear who was which though. Anna was teaching Jay Jay how to cut paper, a dangerous lesson that included someone having to hold the paper as he snipped clumsily through. I took over for a bit, he snipped the same piece of paper until it got to small and then switched, at it’s tiniest I was afraid of losing a finger. He improved a lot by the end though, able to cut a zigzag line, whether the zigzag was on purpose was a different story. We talked to the three of them and their parents for a while. They event wrapped up slowly, with one last meal that we helped serve, and people slowly gathering children and crafts and heading out the large metal doors. Even Nya, Bella and Jay Jay left, leaving a permanent mark on both of our groups. Our contact, Elizabeth Toomey, said she was looking forward to hearing from us and told us to email her before sending us on our way.