Service Learning

Organizational Proposal

Submitted by:
Anh Cao and Nadja Sasivarevic
Information Technology/Business Leadership Program
SLCC Communications 1010
January 13, 2016

Table of Contents
Section
Page

Overview
1
Project
Description
.2
Group
Assets
...4
Group
Limitations.
5
Recommendations
..6
Conclusion
.7
Works
Cited
..8

Here is a
picture of the
hospital.

OVERVIEW
Childrens hospitals are all filled with photos of children smiling, but the
children that are in the hospital, are having a hard time dealing with illnesses. We
noticed a need for helping children and knew that something had to be done to help
the children forget about their situation and to enjoy a laugh or two.
There is a Ronald McDonald Family Room inside Primary Childrens Hospital.
Around this time of year, there are many restrictions around the hospital to prevent
the spread of viruses, specifically the flu. This means that any children visiting their
family members are generally bored because they cant go into the playroom if they
arent in-patients. Our proposal was to bring the games to the kids. We would have
about 7 volunteers and asked that they each brought a games to play with the kids
and their family.
There are
also many donations for the hospital
around this time from the local
community. Another aspect of or
project was to take those donations
donated by the community and

Mariah and Nadja

playing the game
Clue.

organize them in closets. This was extremely helpful

because the children were able to have some fun while
playing games with us and we also helped many of the

volunteer coordinators by organizing the different donations so they could be

distributed through the different playrooms around the hospital.
Helping out the children to forget about their situation at hand is very
powerful. You can see the smile on their faces light up the whole room when they

forget about their problems. The value of our recommendation is that we all believe
that helping children can possibly be the most important type of service that you
can do. Children deserve to be happy and deserve to be children and forget about
all problems. Our proposal will help solve the need for people to go to hospitals and
play with the children.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
We had our service project with the Ronald McDonald House and Primary
Childrens because it really helped other in a small way that would affect the rest of
their day. The purpose of our project was to show many of the families that we were
happy to spend time with their children and the
volunteer coordinators were grateful that they had so
much help with organizing all their donations. We set
up this project originally with the Ronald McDonald
Family Room, but we found out a different group would
be coming in around 6. This meant that we wouldnt
have a total of 4 hours for all of our group members
from Company.
We accomplished all these goals by using these
steps: first we came up with a backup plan to work
with Primary Childrens because we were aware of the
huge loads of donations they received for the
upcoming Christmas season. They were in the same building so we wanted to be
able to help as much as we could so we werent ever sitting down during the 4
hours. Secondly, to have the game night, we also spent time at Nadjas house to

make posters advertising the events so more families would expect to spend some
time in the Family Room. We posted these around the hospital a week before the

Megan and Matt

wrapping chocolates for

event! Thirdly, on December 18, 2015, we met

at the Ronald McDonald Family Room with a
variety of different board games to play with the

families and children there. We were able to play games and also bring treats to
give to any other children we werent able to play with. When there were less
people and families in the room, we went down the hall to help the volunteer
coordinators and security guards with sorting through donations. Fourth, we were
able to sort through donations quickly because there were many of us and we got to
know the layout of all the other sorted piles. There were also gingerbread house kits
that needed stickers to deliver to families in the hospital. We worked together in an
assembly line style to work efficiently in an organized fashion. We finished quickly
and amazed the volunteer coordinator with how well we worked together! While we
waited to see if more donations would come, we helped make craft kits for children
in the hospital. We mainly focused on making duct tape pens for children to make in
their rooms when they are generally on restrictions during the winter season.
Overall, our group worked together to play games with families in the Ronald
McDonald Family Room, and really help the hospital with all their donations from the
community. We had a lot of fun, but still worked very efficiently together as a team!
At each of the meetings that our group met, we all wrote down the objectives
of the day and talked about how we were to accomplish them. We also talked about
time and how we were to accomplish finishing everything in time as well as
accommodating for people who had to leave early so they all got their projects in on
time.

In the end, we were able to make many of the kids happy. They were able to
forget about the problem at hand and were just kids for a little bit. That is
something that they will remember for as long as they are in the hospital. That was
our groups end goal in mind.

GROUP ASSETS

The group had many strong points because of our previous learning
experience from the Information Technology/Management Training Program. Our
first strength was that we were able to accomplish many tasks through our keen
communication skills! One of the most efficient points of our
service project was working together to put stickers on
gingerbread kits. We were told by the volunteer coordinator that
these huge stacks of gingerbread kits needed to have the stickers
on them before they could be delivered to the patients. When we
worked on putting stickers on the gingerbread kits, we had
instrumental communication (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas,
Communicating at Work, 2013, p.8). Instrumental
Although Makayla was not
in our service project, she
came to Nadjas house for
support. She is holding up
one of the posters that
were posted in the

communication are messages aimed at

accomplishing the task at hand. The first part of the
communication was the instructions and the

stickers to put on the kits. The effective use of this skill came from working together
in an efficient fashion by organizing into groups and completing the task at hand
very quickly.
The second strength was that we communicated the most efficient way to do
this by creating groups of people to do the same task over and over again within a
line. It was very similar to an assembly line because a group would pick up the new
gingerbread kits for another group to put the stickers on. The next group would
neatly stack the boxes back up so they were organized and easily accessed.
Instrumental communication was very important in the group because we needed
to finish the task at hand. Our previous training with this type of communication
was helpful because it boosted our efficiency and really amazing the other
5

coordinators that we communicated with one another so effectively and

professionally while doing service.
Another communication concept we applied well was our non-verbal
communication, specifically with our immediacy towards families (Adler, Elmhorst,
Lucas, Communicating at Work, 2013, p.101)

GROUP LIMITATIONS
Weaknesses is something that every group has. One weakness that my group
had was asynchronous communication (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, Communicating at
Work. 1010, 2013, p.12). Asynchronous
communication is communicating through low speed
channels. Many of those include email, memos, and
voice mail. Many of the people in our group couldnt or
didnt communicate back in a time fast enough that

Matt and Lauren

packing pretzels
for the kids lunch
boxes.

would help our group service project out. An example of

that is when we went to Nadjas house to make posters.
Many were not able to comer to that part of the project.

But, they did not contact me back until later which made it difficult to see if we
would have enough people for our service project. So, not communicating right on
time, worried us if we would have enough people for our service project.
A second limitation of the service project was figuring out the culture and the
co-culture of the people in the hospital. Culture and co-culture may look and sound
the same, but they are completely different things. Culture is a learned sets of
shared interpretations about beliefs, value, and norms that affect the behaviors of a

relatively large group of people. On the other hand, co-culture is the groups that
have a clear identity within the majority culture. (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas,
Communicating at Work, 2013, p.32) So, co-cultures are different groups inside a
culture. It was difficult to present ourselves in a way that is fair since we were all
going to a hospital.

RECOMMENDIATIONS

Our proposal to better improve our project is to organize better with the
hospital. Primary hospital has so many limitations with what projects are available
for people to do. Which they should since they are dealing with children who have
illnesses. Those children should not be exposed to bacteria to further prevent any
more sickness. Some children are also dealing with post operation stress or again
sicknesses. So, we wouldnt want to distress those children. The hospital had many
multiple projects that we could do with the
hospital. So, if one project would not work,
we could have another option. With a
couple of those options, we were sure to
find something to do to help out the
Primary Childrens staff. The Ronald
McDonald house had options where you

Anh and Dakota playing board

games.

could set up games and see if any kids

wanted to play games. We were able to
play games with many kids but not as many
kids showed up like we had expected. Even
with the multiple posters posted around the

hospital, we were not able to get a big group of children. We believe that those If we
only had more advertisement, like a huge poster posted in the cafeteria or a sign at
the front desk, we would have had more kids show up. If we had more kids show up,
there is no doubt in my mind that we would have put more smiles on those kids
faces.
Using the common- Good Approach., which is finding whether this action
promotes the most good in the community (Adler, Elmhorst, Lucas, Communicating

at Work, 2013, p.26), was an approach that we had to look for in our group. We were
looking at the community as a whole with our project in the hospital.
Another thing that could have been done differently would be to network
more. Networking is the strategic dimension that goes beyond being
sociable. That means that we communicated more with the people at the
hospital that could help and benefit us. Same with the more poster idea, if
we networked more with the employees, we could have probably helped out
more kids .I feel that would have helped us only get better in
All of us making
posters

our project.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, our group. Our group listened very well and helped us
throughout our project. Even though we had many obstacles, like communicating
correctly and letting each other know when we could meet. I feel like those
obstacles could easily be fixed with the help of asynchronous communication.
Synchronous communication is quick communication, like face-to-face conversation
and telephone calls. We have learned so much from this service project. It has
taught us to never take anything for granted. Seeing those kids in the hospital
makes me appreciate my health and what I have in my life.

Service is an important activity that

we should never forget. The feeling of
helping out another person, big or small,
is incredible. You have a warm feeling
inside knowing that you did something
right. I know that both of us volunteer at
hospitals and we both really see the
difference that a little help can go.
Matt and Lauren packing
pretzels. We all packed
pretzels later.

Whether it is working at a gift shop or

into a patients room to go and speak to

going
them,

you always make a difference.

Works Cited
Adler, Ronald Elmhorst, Jeanne, Lucas, Kristen, Comm 1010 Salt Lake Community College
Comm 1010. Print.,4 Feb, 2016.

Gordon, Cynthia K., Karen Anderson-Lain, and John

T. Warren. Communication in Action:

Comm 1010.

Print. 4 Feb, 2016.

"Primary Children's Hospital." Primary Children's

Hospital. Intermountain. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.

We are all
making

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