Reflection+Product

Matt Fields 12/21/2010  Senior Sem Reflection Product  For my senior project I am hoping to successfully clean up a location in the Belmont area that is heavily used. There are locations all over where trash just sits around and nobody does anything about it. I am hoping that I can organize a group of volunteers, along with P.J. Gallagher, in order to make a place usable again. This idea came to me over the summer when running throughout the area. Some of the trails and playgrounds were unusable because of all the litter surrounding it. I am hoping that with this project i can bring people back to Belmont, which was once a happening place that is now a place that people fear to go to because of all the beer bottles and cigarette butts that lie on the ground. In doing so I hope to use pictures of before and after to demonstrate the effectiveness of my project. In order to make my project work I am going to need a few volunteers. To obtain these volunteers I would like to ask members of my track team. Prior to asking my teammates I will need to make a set date on which to go out to the park to clean up. I also will need to get a permit from the city to make sure it is okay for me to be there on the date and time I choose. Materials will need to be gathered to make things possible. A permit, rubber gloves, trash bag, people, snacks and hours of planning, preparing, and cleaning will be needed to make this event possible.  In order to reach these goals PJ and I have contacted Fairmont Park and Services. We got in touch with people and talked about the goals and tasks of my project with these people. Most of which we did over the phone, and some emails. This was a frustrating task because of all the troubles we encountered. The biggest problem came when the woman we were talking to lost her job. Everything we had going came to an end, leaving us no option but to start from square one. In order to overcome this problem we did the best we could at starting from scratch. It was stressful because I knew I was running low on time and was fearful that my project wouldn’t be done in time. After getting in contact with Frank rather quickly I was relieved and knew that everything would be ok.  I have learned how difficult things can be when relying on people. Trying to find a place and date for my project was difficult because I was relying on others to call me back. The woman took awhile to call me back, and when is lost her job she didn’t bother to tell PJ or I until we tried to follow up and call her back. This was very frustrating because it took away a lot of time that could have been made more useful. Through this I learned how important it is to have a backup plan. Even though at the end I think the original plan will work out, it was stressful. When we came up with a background plan, things looked a little better and I did not worry as much.