Senior Project Reflection 3

This week, Avery and I focused on completing our two others goals that we had yet to complete. Although we knew that we would not have time to finish the pamphlet we wanted to create for admissions, we still wanted to reach out to alumni to get responses to give to admission/Lori and let them do what they wanted with them.

The first couple days of this week we reached out to several alums, intricately explaining our senior project, our thoughts, our goals, and our questions for them. Thankfully, 6/7 alums responded with thoughtful, and provoking answers to our questions. I am so excited to see where these answers go and how they help the connection between our school and Native Americans. When we asked the alums what they got most out of their Proctor experience, the common answer was confidence. I thought this should be highlighted because I think that accurately depicts what everyone gets from Proctor. I think this is also a great way to encourage Native Americans to come to Proctor because everyone's responses were so positive.

In the last part of the week, Avery and I focused on our third and final goal. Presenting our senior project and teaching the school about the connection that Proctor has with Native Americans, especially those of the Pineridge and Rosebud reservations. This was definitely the most stressful part of our project, and frankly the part I was not excited about. I don't like getting up in front of people, and I hate when all eyes are on me. Ive never been a preforming kind of person. The fact that I was supposed to get up in front of the entire school and not just make a quick announcement about my sports team but actually present something completely terrified me. I had never done anything like that before and I hadn't planned to, until now. We spent some of Wednesday and all of Thursday planning on what we would say in assembly and also making a short powerpoint to go along with it.

When Friday came we were ready to present. The presentation went rather smoothly. I am so proud of myself and of Avery for doing something that we were both completely freaked out by. I think we totally stepped out of our comfort zones and gained a lot of confidence. I am very happy we completed another goal, and also pushed our limits.

Senior Project Day 16

Today, (Friday), Avery and I met at 9:00 to go over/practice our presentation in assembly. The presentation went well, although we definitely were a bit nervous and had a couple hiccups in our presentation but I think thats okay and helps us learn even more. I'm glad we completed another goal which was to educate the community about what we were trying to do in our senior project and also teach people who don't know about the connection the importance of it. It feels great to complete another essential goal in our project!

Senior Project Day 15

Today, (Thursday), we has to redo our presentation for Friday because the time we had was not long enough to present what we planned on. We completely shortened and changed the main list of our presentation in order to mold to the time we were given. This was frustrating, but good in the long run, because the things we took out we could use for our final product next week. We chose to highlight our Splash fundraising success, talk about the connection, and also share a Moose Lip singers song as well.

Senior Project Day 14

Today, (Wednesday) Avery and I continued responding/contacting to the Native American alum. 4 our of the 7 responded back quickly asking for more details on our project. We plan on creating a google doc to put all of the alum's responses in and then we plan on sharing this doc with admission, Lori, etc. in hope that they can use this information to strengthen the connection between Proctor and Native Americans. A common response to the question What did you get most out of Proctor? was confidence and I wanted to highlight that. Avery an dI reached out to Tucker Prudden and we will be presenting our presentation on the connection between Proctor and Native Americans on Friday, after the awards. We spend the remainder of the day planning what we would say, and also starting our final project we would present next week.

Senior Project Day 13

Today, Avery and I got a later start than usual due to the fact that I had a dentist appt. We later met up at school and met with Annie MacKenzie and she gave us even more Native American alum contact information. What was cool was she not only gave us Lakota alum information but also other Native American grads that came from the Navajo and Hopey tribes. We contacted all seven and sent out individual emails to them all. We are hoping to get some responses back. Avery and I also started the presentation that we plan to share in assembly on powerpoint.

Senior Project day 12

Today, Avery and I met with Lori to again go over our plans and see how everything was going. She signed out time sheets and we also chatted about the Native American alums and getting in touch with them. She gave us a few contacts (3) and together, Avery and I drafted an email to them. They quickly responded with their answers and we put their responses into a doc in order to create the pamphlet for admissions. We also talked to Lori and we have decided that we wanted to present what we have learned in assembly and create a presentation for our peers to enjoy.

Weekly Reflection #2

This week Avery and I completed one of our major goals in our senior project, we fundraised for the horse therapy program on the Rosebud Reservation. We did this by running a game of assassin or splash. We sent out emails and made an assembly announcement about the game and what it was raising money for. On Monday and Tuesday we sat at lunch collecting donations and signing people up for splash. I highly encourage anyone who is fundraising next to run this game because it was a huge success. I really enjoyed this week because I felt like we really made a difference in someone else's life. It was great to see how the Proctor community came together to make a change in someone else's life. On multiple occasions, people who did not want to participate in SPLASH, still donated money which I thought was really admirable.

On Wednesday, the start of the game, we woke up early and sent out an email to each participant explaining the rules and giving them there targets. Thursday and Friday were planning days for next week, but in the afternoon on Friday we went to Hanover, NH to go see a Native American museum there. The museum was a little bit of a disappointment, considering the one we intended on going to was closed due to construction. The other one we went to didn't give a lot of information about native americans, rather their artwork instead.

This week we learned about time management and also the power of fun when it comes to fundraising. SPLASH was so successful because people thought it was fun. The participants enjoyed the game, therefore, they gave more money. Overall, we made 300.00 dollars for the therapy program. Which I think is awesome. We debated playing another game of splash to raise more money but decided against it because the first game is still going on and we probably wouldn't have a winner if we played again.

One thing that went well this week was splash, and one thing that could've gone better is our time management. Next week, we plan to get in touch with he alums and present to assembly about the things we have learned.