I have mentioned The Island a lot on here as a youth mentoring program for 8-13 year olds. They do great work. Here's a short video about The Island's work and starring Emma!
Emma was the first person from the Mission Partners that I met - one of the first six people that I met in York period, actually. I walked into church for my first meeting, and Emma was in the kitchen preparing for an event. I was really excited about the work of The Island so Emma invited me to help out with the event, which was a cooking class for a few kids still on their summer holiday.
I taught cooking and food justice classes to kids almost every week for an entire school year last year, but somehow this was the most challenging class I've been a part of. I felt SO awkward. It showed me just how hard it was going to be to figure out how to work in a new place with entirely new people.
But Emma was SO welcoming to me. She included me in the activities, introduced me to kids, ignored my awkwardness, and we had a good conversation when we went outside to let the kids play on the playground. It made me feel so much better. It was also good to have some social interaction and work activity, even if it was completely challenging, because it got the ball rolling.
So this video stars that same Emma talking about The Island and the Shine Award that she won for her hard work!
https://www.facebook.com/ThatsYorkTV/videos/316353782214726/
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