James Coleman
America Inside Out
40 hours of my life...5/16/2018 Hi there guys!
Today I want to tell you about the biggest and the cutest project I’ve ever done. As any exchange student I had to do at least 20 volunteer hours, but I decided to go for 100 to get the special certificate in 3 weeks before deadline. So, in 3 weeks I did about 50 hours. Yes, I know, it’s the craziest decision ever. It would be hard to find quickly a lot of good volunteer opportunities and for my host family to drive me there, so I came up with an idea how to work at home. There is a beautiful tradition in Ukrainian culture to create and keep at the house handmade rag dolls, which are called "lalka-motanka", for luck, health, and protection from problems or diseases. I decided to make some for children at local hospitals. The dolls are created out of colorful fabric, threads, yarn, ribbons, and stuffing inside their heads. Instead of the faces, they have hand-reeled crosses as symbols of protection and Christianity. Every doll is well-detailed and unique, there are no dolls dressed up in the same way. Each of them wears a skirt, an underskirt, a jacket, an apron, and a belt. My host mom loves crafting, so she let me use her material,s and I reimbursed it by buying her some new fabric for my host siblings' dresses. On this or next weekends I am planning to visit children's hospital in the town and deliver the dolls and I am really looking forward doing it. I think this project is a wonderful opportunity for me to share my culture and the most important - inspire children to fight against their illnesses and believe in soon recovering.
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April 2018
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