Over the past two weeks our group collected valuable information about our topic. We all did some research in certain areas in our topic, and Bernice did an interview with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Through all that I learned a lot about our topic. I researched about the history of the St. Joseph’s orphanage in Vermont, and learned about how the orphanage handled the children staying there. For example, the orphanage took children in when their parents couldn’t afford to take care of them anymore. They also classified the children by numbers, instead of names, which I thought was an interesting way to classify children. The orphanage closed in 1974. Since then, former orphans have reported being abused by the caretakers there. There have been over 100 cases with abuse from the orphanage caretakers.

From the interview Bernice did I found out more about Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS). I learned that it is a program that is designed to help kids be successful. They pair kids with mentors to help guide them in learning, and they also have 35 volunteers that come in and help in their free time. Before reading the questions/answers from the interview I didn’t know much about BBBS. Now, I do and I’m excited to learn more about the organization in the future.

Next, our group is planning on doing more research in different areas in our topic, as well as planning and getting more into our interviews. This week I’m hoping on interviewing a previous Vermont foster mother. I’m going to ask her a few questions that will help us with our project, and if we think she’ll help us more forward with our research and questions then, we will film the interview and make it part of our final product (documentary). I’m excited to learn more about our topic and more forward with our learning.