Elizabeth Flanagan - "Prepping for Summer Camp"

​Hi everyone! With summer weather upon us once again, it’s hard to believe how time has flown by during this VISTA year. My service here in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy has been busier than ever lately as we wrap up the school year.
 
Students in our Service Learning for Health Professionals class turned in their final papers yesterday, marking the end of my second semester working with the class. This year, over 120 graduate students completed more than 2,500 hours of service with 14 different nonprofit organizations in the area. I contributed to adding five new service sites the second semester of the course to expand the reach of our students’ service in the community.  We increased the enrollment in the class between first and second semester and I hope that my efforts this spring will continue to lead to higher numbers of students taking this service course.
 
I coordinated service projects for students from the service learning class to complete with two of our community partners. At Community Action Network (CAN), students presented health workshops about stress, first aid, and nutrition at 4 different sites to over 50 kids. It was fun to watch both the grad students and the kids at CAN get engaged with these workshops. At Peace Neighborhood Center, students put on one workshop each semester to parents about budget friendly healthy eating for kids.
 
Although the class is over, there’s still plenty to be done, as I’ve started planning STEM lessons for six weeks of summer camp at Community Action Network. The theme of the camp is Olympics and the STEM lessons are all about the human body. I look forward to seeing how the kids at camp enjoy these lessons during my last few months as a VISTA! 

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