明日之光Open Arms 团队张开双臂欢迎你

前言

自2020年11月以来，美中下一代基金会明日之光公益奖平台得到华人社区的积极响应和参与并逐渐强大。平台的职责之一是传播各个团队的事迹和经验，共大家学习，交流和参考。明日之光Open Arms团队于2020年10月由初，高中学生组成，致力于帮助学习交流有障碍的孩子。一年多来他们在帮助他人的过程中锻炼成长，收益多多。下面就是他们用中英文讲述自己的故事和经验。在此，他们还提供了联系方式，欢迎更多的义工加入他们团队。

明日之光Open Arms 团队：张开双臂欢迎你

On October 31, 2020, we, eight middle school and high school students, began developing an idea of creating a place to help children 3-12 with special needs in learning and communication. As we learned that 10% of the population has difficulty with learning and communication, we became determined to help. With a desire to contribute to society, we decided to establish our own volunteer organization. The goal was to create a safe environment for children with learning disabilities to build friendships, develop their communication skills, and have fun. This would benefit not only the kids but the parents as well, and allow them to have time for themselves. During our next two meetings, we worked on establishing this organization and organizing the first event.

2020 年 10 月 31 日，我们八名初/高中生开始构思创建一个场所，以帮助 3-12 岁有特殊学习和交流需求的儿童。当我们了解到 10% 的人口在学习和交流方面存在困难时，我们决定提供帮助。怀着为社会做贡献的愿望，我们决定成立自己的志愿者组织。目标是为有学习障碍的儿童创造一个安全的环境，以建立友谊，发展他们的沟通技巧，并从中获得乐趣。 这不仅对孩子有好处，对他们的父母也有帮助，可以让他们有一段自己的时间。 在接下来的两次会议中，我们致力于建立这个组织并计划了第一次活动。

On May 29, 2021, after months of preparation, Open Arms officially started its first Special Saturday with 15 volunteers and 14 special needs kids. We were extremely excited to meet each other and felt a sense of connection and understanding. All volunteers felt they had learned a lot about their partners. It was a huge success。 Many participants were eager to come back and their parents expressed many thanks through WeChat. We were thrilled that our organization could help these kids and their parents.  We immediately started planning the next event.

2021 年 5 月 29 日，经过几个月的准备，Open Arms 的 15 名志愿者和 14 名有特殊需要的孩子一起正式开始了第一个特殊星期六活动。 义工们开心地迎接孩子们的到来，在两个小时的活动中彼此感受到了一种联系和理解。 所有的志愿者都觉得他们对他们的合作伙伴有了很多了解。 这是一个巨大的成功。许多参与者渴望回来，他们的父母通过微信表达了很多感谢。 我们很高兴我们的组织可以帮助这些孩子和他们的父母。 我们立即开始计划下一次活动

Since then, we have hosted events once every month. Each participant partners with a volunteer, allowing the children to have their volunteers’ undivided attention. For a duration of 2 hours, the volunteers lead their assigned child to do prepared activities of their choice, with a snack break in between. The activities include crafting, singing and dancing, gaming, and playing outside. The volunteers interact with their participants and encourage them to communicate with them and other children.

从五月起，我们每个月都会举办一次活动。 每个参与者都有一名固定的志愿者，让孩子们得到志愿者的全部的关注。 在 2 小时的时间里，志愿者带领他们指定的孩子做他们选择的准备好的活动，中间有零食时间。 活动包括手工制作、唱歌跳舞、游戏和户外玩耍。 志愿者与他们的参与者互动，并鼓励他们与他们和其他孩子交流。

As of 2021, we have hosted 8 events. We are overjoyed that the children are excited to be at Open Arms each time. Additionally, parents were thankful they had time to relax without the need to worry about their kids. In addition to regular activities, we also host special events for holidays. For example, in the month of October, for Halloween, everyone was invited to dress up to celebrate, and the participants were given goodie bags. The children also had different activities to partake in, such as making oobleck and blowing giant bubbles. At the Christmas event, the children went on a treasure hunt for ornaments, folded origami, and received gifts in a game of White Elephant.

截至 2021 年底，我们已经举办了 8 场活动。 我们很高兴孩子们每次都对 Open Arms 感到兴奋。 此外，父母很感激他们有时间放松而无需担心孩子。 除了常规活动外，我们还会在假期举办特别活动。 例如，在十月的万圣节，每个人都被邀请穿着costume来庆祝，参与者收到礼品袋。 孩子们还有不同的活动可以参与，比如制作oobleck和吹大泡泡。 在圣诞节活动中，孩子们进行了圣诞饰品寻宝活动、折纸活动，并玩了白象礼物交换游戏。

The regular volunteers of Open Arms started with eight girls who founded the organization, ages 11-14. Now we have some more regular volunteers joining us for every event.  Each of our members have remarkable qualities of empathy, adaptability, and patience. Every volunteer is dedicated to doing their best, arriving half an hour early to set up, staying half an hour to clean, and adapting to each child’s needs. Through positive feedback and suggestions from the parents and participants, the volunteers are learning and improving themselves to better assist the participants. We are proud to be making a positive impact on our community!

With a new year around the corner, Open Arms main volunteer ’s objective for 2022 is to expand and improve our program. As the pandemic is still going on, we understand some participants might not be able to come. But, we expect that there will be more special needs children that will be able to benefit from our program after the pandemic settles down. We plan to host more events each month, add new programs, and recruit more permanent volunteers. We will also organize some fundraising events for our organization so we can provide more activities for these kids we serve.

Open Arms 的常规志愿者始于 8 位创立该组织的女孩，年龄在 11-14 岁之间。现在我们有更多的定期志愿者加入我们的每一个活动。我们的每个成员都具有很强的同理心、适应性和耐心。每位志愿者都尽心尽力，提前半小时布置，留半小时打扫卫生，尽力适应每个孩子的需求。通过家长和参与者的反馈和建议，志愿者不断学习和提升自己，以更好地帮助参与者。我们很自豪能够对我们的社区产生积极影响！

新的一年即将来临，Open Arms 主要志愿者 2022 年的目标是扩大和改进我们的计划。由于新冠疫情仍在继续，我们理解一些参与者可能暂时无法参加。但是，我们希望在疫情平息后，有更多特殊需要的儿童能够从我们的计划中受益。我们计划每月举办更多活动，增加新项目，并招募更多永久志愿者。我们还将组织一些筹款活动，以便为我们服务的这些孩子提供更多活动。

If you are interested in volunteering or participating at Open Arms, we would be delighted to have you join us! Visit our website https://openarms2021org.wixsite.com/openarms to sign up! For more information, see our website or join our discord server (invite can be found on the website).

If you are willing to donate to support this organization, you can Zelle to openarms2021.org@gmail.com .

To contact us, email us at openarms2021.org@gmail.com. We welcome you with open arms!

如果您有兴趣成为义工或参加 Open Arms 活动 ，我们很高兴您能加入我们！ 请访问我们的网站 https://openarms2021org.wixsite.com/openarms 进行注册！ 有关更多信息，请访问我们的网站或加入我们的 Discord 服务器（可以在网站上找到邀请）。

如果您愿意捐款支持该组织，您可以将 Zelle 发送至 openarms2021.org@gmail.com。

联系我们，请发送电子邮件至 openarms2021.org@gmail.com。 我们张开双臂欢迎你！

相关报道：https://atlanta.americachineselife.com/%E5%BC%A0%E5%BC%80%E5%8F%8C%E8%87%82-open-arms/