First Day of ASB in San Diego
Today was the first day of the our San Diego Alternative Spring break trip!We departed from Caltech super early at 7:30am in the morning to drive down to San Diego. We arrived to volunteer at the 23rd Annual Women's Resouce Fair at the San Diego Civic Center hosted by the San Diego Volunteer Lawyer Programorganized annually by a Task Force made up of volunteers from the San Diego community. Even though the weather was gloomy and overcast, our spirits were high as we were eager to help out. We learned from Fair organizers that the fair provides a huge variety ofsocial, medical and legal services, as well as employment information and shelter referralsfor low-income, recovering, homeless and abusedwomen and their children. This wide spectrum of services is funded byLawyers Club of San Diego, the San Diego County Bar Association and the San Diego County Bar Foundation.
In this outreach program, there were so many providers with a huge volunteer force was in attendance.
*Hundreds of volunteers and attendees.*
In addition, there was a Medical Area with organizations ranging from Nurse Associations to Mental Hospitals to substance abuse help. Many nurses, lab technicians, and doctors were onsite to provide medical assistance.There were many medical examination rooms doing mammograms, pregnancy education, STD testing, pap smears, dental screening and massage therapy. There was even a Cosmetology school providing manicures.
*Various medical services were provided by health care volunteers.*
The social services volunteers provided include domestic and sexual assault services; education and employment advice; food, nutrition, health, legal, parenting and drug recovery counseling.In addition, there were many useful and practical workshops ranging from Self-Defense to Mary Kay Make Up Tutorial to Career Counseling to Job Search.A large section of the Fair was legal clinics that provided legal counseling with volunteer lawyers.
*Job search Seminar.*
*Self-defense workshop.*
There was a large children's center that catered to mother and children needs such as health care and learning. There were even tooth fairies walking around giving out tooth brushes to promote healthy dental care.
**There were around 400 women and children who attended and our task was to hand out lunches and gift sacks to all of the participants and volunteers.We started out with large mountains of sack lunches but the joy and gratitude from the women who were thankful for our help made our work load easier.
*The mountains of lunches for the hundreds of volunteers and attendees.*
*Working!*
*Success!*
We also hand delivered sack lunches and waters to the hundred of volunteers. Even though the weather was overcast, we enthusiastically worked with underprivileged women and volunteered our time to help them find the resource and guidance they needed to improve their skill set and quality of their lives. Through interacting withSan Diego women and children in need, we gained exposure to those who are less fortunate than us.It was a busy but fruitful day.
