One Paw at a Time:
A Service Learning Project
Lessons we learned
1. Getting in touch with community partner is not always easy
About halfway through the semester Taryn Bromser-Kloeden, the Adoption/Rescue Coordinator and our main person of contact, resigned and left her replacement in charge of communication with us. However, she did not inform us that she had left and she as well as her replacement were both unresponsive to all emails and questions. This made preparing for our main event as well as the Chili’s proceeds night particularly difficult. From this we learned to always have more than one possible contact person and that if attempting to contact your primary and even secondary contact person does not work at all going in person to the source can solve most problems.
3. Seemingly straight-forward tasks are not always as easy as they seem
When we were assigned with the task of promoting and executing the Howl-O-Ween adoption event, we did not realize how much work this would entail. We had to plan a time to meet with our community partner, Taryn, plan for unexpected lacks in communication, a small budget to work with as well as another major event going on at the same time as ours. Although our event sounds like a simple one, as a group we had to overcome a lot of obstacles and really work together to pull off such a fun and exciting event. Every task has hidden complications and we had to balance our outside lives with this event.
4. Sometimes your biggest weaknesses are your strengths.
Staying on track was a problem during meetings, but because of this our ways of communication and relationships were strengthened. This also lead to less hostility towards each other if something negative were to happen or if one member of the group was being particularly difficult to meet up with. Although as a group we may have gotten off task a time or may have had to meet up with out one of the members present we learned how to pull ourselves back together and focus on the tasks at hand as well as learned how to function effectively in the absence of a group member. Throughout the course of this project we built friendships and learned how to turn weaknesses into strengths.
2. Working within a group brings a diversity of skills to solve a problem
- One Paw at a Time is composed of greatly diverse talent, which opened each of our eyes to value an assortment of mindsets within a group. Once we understood our main goal and each other's strengths and passions, we were able to break tasks into specific parts. Doing so created a sense of accountability among each member: we would hold each other accountable and also be forced to hold ourselves accountable. Through breaking tasks into parts, we would feel more comfortable delegating tasks to other group members if someone felt overwhelmed with their work. We have truly learned that “two heads are better than one” through our semester-long collaboration.
