Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Chilren's Festival

Learning Objective Five

11/12/2023

For one weekend each year, the pavilion in our local city hosts a children’s festival. Different organizations attend and host activities for children in the area. I participated as a volunteer for a children’s hospital, which involved running different games and taking pictures as the animal mascot of the hospital. There was minimal planning on my part because I was only a volunteer that helped during the hours of the festival; however, I did get there a little early to help set up the tent my organization would be using.

Regardless, I worked collaboratively with the different volunteers present and the coordinator to ensure a smooth experience for the people attending the festival. Volunteering at the Children’s Festival is always interesting. Especially when you are the mascot, taking pictures with families, it is bizarre. However, you have a big responsibility in that role, and you must work collaboratively with the other volunteers because you cannot speak as the mascot. Instead, other volunteers walk with you and speak on your behalf. It is super important to have a plan beforehand to work effectively and have clear language and a good attitude and understanding of your responsibilities to work well collaboratively in that environment.

Working collaboratively can be beneficial because it allows responsibilities to be distributed among multiple people to do jobs more efficiently. Additionally, the saying “two minds are better than one” is very true; having multiple collaborators working on the same task can create more interesting and better ideas than just one person working on it.