At my company, today was "United Way" day. United Way is a large organization that gets donations and then supports many, many smaller charities. Many large companies in the US support United way, and then get their employees to make donations as well. Today I volunteered to go to Chicago and work at a place called "Jane Adams Hull House", http://www.hullhouse.org/about.asp which is a charity that, amount other things, has a daycare program for poor families that are working to get themselves out of poverty. This place is only 2 miles from ( 3.2 km) from AYS so I parked close to AYS and walked the 2 miles because I like seeing the different neighborhoods in Chicago. I got to the Hull House at 9am and they had an introduction for us and a tour of the place. Then we got to work with the kids, who were ages 3 to 5. They were great. There was a mixture of Mexican, African American and other races and all were cute and fun to spend time with. One girl, Erica, who was 4, talked to me for 30 minutes non-stop, while we played in the sand area. What a little doll. As much as I love listening and interacting with them, you learn about "home life" where they live that is a bit scary. She talked of how her dad yells a lot and that he drinks beer all the time. Not sure what her home life is like, but she was a little darling. She did look at my employee ID (which has a picture) and ask me if that was me when I was older. Hehe. I said "yes, and now I’m getting younger". She looked at me and I knew we both had an understanding. I love kids. One other girl, who was age 3 was from India and did not speak any English yet. We could not communicate – verbally, but there are many other ways and we had a great time.

It was fun reading to them and interacting with them. Such wonderful kids who come from very challenging home life. But even so, there are those families who will work hard and get out of poverty with the help of places like this. Before I left, I stopped in the kids room and said good bye. They all thanked me and then Erica came to give me a hug, then another girl, and then each of the children, even those I did not get to meet all took turns giving me a big hug. I was so touched by this and it made this the perfect day.