Project Impact

David Adams

Joel Ahne

Jack Barton

Janae Dawson

Dylan Guth

Nicole Ihlenfield

Jaira Lacar

Daniel Martin

Jack O’Grady

Nick Osterburg

Andrew Schenkel

Emily Sesterhenn

Abby Stephens

Cal Tommasone
Agency & Project Information

Name: Bloc Ministries

Location: Bloc Ministries operates out of the Price Hill and Cleves neighborhoods in

Cincinnati. Our group volunteers specifically at the East Price Hill location.

Contact person: Keion Staser, keion.staser@onebloc.org

Agency mission: Building relationships with our neighbors & sharing hope in brokenness

Vision: To provide a community that encourages and nurtures positives choices and goals while

also finding self worth through a healthy relationships with God and community members.

Values:

Believing in the power of hope (in Christ to save)

Living where we serve (by being consistently present in our community)

One to one (relationship and discipleship)

Christ in us (in all that we do)

History:

Throughout their life’s as youth pastors, Dwight and Stephanie Young had observed that

the neighborhoods around them were either broken or breaking. Many students were slipping

through the cracks and were not engaged within their community. Students were not involved in

school, church, or any other organizations within the community. In 1998 the Young’s made it

their mission to help save these broken and breaking communities and created Bloc. Bloc aims to

help build relationships in the community and offers a safe place for the youth and adults, so they

can succeed despite the conditions that they are in. Today Bloc has grown into four different

locations within the Price Hill and Cleves area. They offer services to over 3000 students and

adults. These services include after school programs, community meals, emergency food and
furniture pantries, housing through EPOH program, hospitality houses for women coming out of

rehab, a job training program, arts center, and a sports performance training center. Bloc is able

to provide all these services by partnering with other community organizations, schools,

businesses, self-help groups, and churches. These resources give their time, money and talent on

many levels for Bloc members to utilize. Along with those resources Bloc is funded by

individual donors, corporate donors, grants and their social enterprises. With the services and

resources listed above, Bloc is able to target and help every single person in the community’s

households and get them involved within their community. To help foster these connections and

make them as strong as they are, Bloc’s staff live in the neighborhoods in which they work so

they are able to communicate with these residents on a daily basis and gain their trust. The level

of trust that Bloc creates allows them to be able to find out the true needs of the community from

the community members themselves.

Measuring Success:

Bloc measures their success by monthly and yearly counts on attendance. They record this

impact within six categories: job skills, community meals, women’s ministry, after school

programs, church services, and arts programs. Throughout the years Bloc has steadily grown.

Currently Bloc is reaching 2,870 community members on a monthly basis and 34,440

community members on a yearly basis. This contributes to the goals of the agency because Bloc

strives to build a strong community from within rather than from the outside. By reaching more

and more people on a monthly and annual basis they are able to instill this internal change within

the community. Bloc hopes that through these programs, individuals will find hope and turn it

around to become leaders in their community change and help other families and individuals find

hope. By reaching more people they have more of a chance of raising leaders and hope in the
community.

Service:

Our group is able to volunteer every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at the East Price Hill

after school program. From six to eight we converse, play games, and pray with local children

from ages 6-18. During this time, we helped foster a safe supervised environment that the

children can feel open and safe in. With this environment the children are able to build

relationships with volunteers and other peers. Many times, people take relationship similar to

these for granted because they have always had them their entire life. In this neighborhood

relationships like these are highly valued and create large impacts on the children. Many time

the children don’t form these relationships, mentorships, and support in their own neighborhood

or household without this after school program. Without this strong support system and

relationships built during the after-school program the children struggle in school and other

situations in life. Our group has been able to build these relationships with these children and it

is evident when we go to volunteer every week and the children reach out to us for

companionship and help with issue that they are having that week whether at home or at

school. We are able to provide them older figure to look up to and advice for all their struggles

they are facing or goals that they want to achieve.

Group Roles

We started volunteering on February 20th and plan on ending April 17th. Bloc is open every

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from six to eight. Each of those days our group is able to

send 3-4 people to volunteer at the East Price Hill location. While volunteering we converse,

interact, pray, and play games with the kids. On many occasions we play foursquare, basketball,
and air hockey, have team challenges, and bible study. Our role as volunteers is to make sure that

the children are following the rules and having a good time. Everyone in the group volunteered

six to eight hours on site and have roles in Project Impact. The Video Team consists of Jaira

Lacar, Jack O’Grady, David Adams, and Daniel Martin. The Executive Summary Team consists

of Emily Sesterhenn, Andrew Schenkel, and Nick Osterburg. The Infographic Team consists of

Abby Stephens, Jack Barton, Daniel Martin, and Joel Ahne. The Presentation Team consists of

Nicole Ihlenfield, Janae Dawson, and Dylan Guth. All of these aspects are important for this

assignment and everyone has been working diligently on their assigned parts.

A night of volunteering at Bloc Ministries may look like this: kids start arriving as soon

as 5:30; doors open at 6:00; the children will usually play games in the game room, play

basketball, or just hang out with other children or the volunteers until about 7:30; bible study

lasts until Bloc closes at 8. Keion, the manager/main supervisor of this Bloc site, does not make

the bible study complex so all the children are able to understand the material. The last 30

minutes every night is the most important because this is when the children learn about core

values and about Jesus’ life. This helps them build relationships and hope that is much needed in

this community. Most nights at Bloc runs smoothly because of Keion and the help of 4-5 regular

volunteers and 3-4 of us from UC. Many times, children from neighborhoods do not take

direction well or behave, but with Keion and assistance of the volunteers Bloc runs very

smoothly. We make sure that every night that the kids are in good hands and feel safe and

comfortable.

Bloc has been a very positive experience for our group. Everyone has enjoyed

interacting with the children. Bloc supports a great cause by giving children a place to have fun

after school and to create relationships within their communities. It has been rewarding to see
group members connect and make an impact on the children even if it is just a small one. It is a

very unique experience that you can’t get in many places. It’s good for the kids to have people

they can look up to and rely on to be there for them. The manager of this Bloc location, Keion, is

very adamant about the consistency of the volunteers. This is mainly for the children’s sake.

Having a strong leader like Keion is vital for this location to run smoothly and for the children to

benefit from the program. Many of the kids that attend Bloc come from troubled families and

need assistance and guidance in their life. As a group, we’ve been able to help guide the kids

that come to Bloc and give them a source of support that they can rely on.

Group Project Outcomes

During the multiple weeks that we worked with Bloc, strengths and weaknesses of our

group emerged and developed. A strength that became evident while volunteering was our ability

to work well with all the children varying from age 6 all the way to age 18. Each member of our

group was able to connect with the children through an assortment of activities whether it be in

the game room playing pool, air hockey, or on the MegaTouch game screens, outside playing

four square or gaga ball, or playing basketball with the older kids. A second strength that our

group showed would be the commitment to our project, Bloc, and the children who rely on the

support that Bloc gives them. Our group showed our commitment through the hard work that we

put into Bloc during each day volunteering by being a role model for the children attending Bloc

while also cooperating with the other volunteers at Bloc to ensure Bloc was impacting the

community in a positive way. A third strength that our group displayed would be our flexibility.

As honor students, every member of our group is involved with different organizations on and

off campus that fill our schedules along with the homework we are given by professors
throughout the week. With the busy schedules, our group showed flexibility by rotating

volunteer days and communicating with each other to make sure that several people were able to

volunteer at Bloc on every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to live up to the commitment we

made with the other volunteers at Bloc that relied on us to help them out during each session. All

in all, our group showed several different strengths while volunteering at Bloc and we believe

that our time at Bloc was extremely beneficially for both parties.

Although our group had multiple strengths while volunteering at Bloc, there were also a

few weaknesses that became evident. A weakness that our group sometimes struggled with

would be figuring out transportation to and from the Bloc location about a 30-minute car drive

from the University of Cincinnati. At the beginning, we had made a schedule as to who was

volunteering and driving on each possible day but with our ever-changing schedules and limited

number of drivers, we had to figure out last minute driving situations, so we could have a group

of students during each possible day in which we could volunteer. A second weakness that was

revealed during our time with Bloc would be our ability to spread the word about the program.

As a relatively new program, Bloc relies heavily on volunteers and word of mouth to expand its

reach and find new children to come to Bloc on a regular basis. As college students not involved

in this specific community, spreading the word about the program was a significant weakness of

our group. Another weakness that of our group was that were only have a limited time to impact

and connect with the children that attend Bloc every day. The leaders and other volunteers at

Bloc but a huge emphasis on being able to truly connect with the children and watch them grow

as people. By only being able to volunteer at Bloc for a couple months, our group was unable to

connect with the children on a long-term scale although each of us did connect with them every

time we volunteered at Bloc and saw improvement in the children throughout the two months we
were involved with Bloc. Although there were certainly weaknesses that showed during the time

we volunteered at Bloc, our group was able to overcome each of the weaknesses and were able to

impact the children at Bloc positively.

Even though our groups for this project were not consistent with the groups from the Fall

semester, our strengths remained the same while working on this project. The main strength that

was shown during both semesters would be our commitment to working on the project. Each

group member showed that they really cared about what we were doing during the project and

made sure that all of their work was done on time and was the quality of work that the other

students expected as Honors students. Another strength that was clear while working on this

project was the group's willingness to be flexible and work around each other’s busy schedules.

While volunteering, coordinating and working out who was driving and volunteering on each

specific day was sometimes a task that the group struggled with. However, with each member

willing to work it out to ensure a group of us was at Bloc each day they were open shows that the

flexibility of our group was a major strength during the time we worked on this project.

Infographic: