The first day was very slow. We mainly just picked up around planet and cleaned everything you could think of. Personally I do not mind cleaning, but for five hours it was pretty rough. The organizing was not as boring as I thought it would be. The second day we got to coach the young planet teams and it honestly made me consider being a dance coach in college. I had never seen myself as wanting to coach kids but that day changed my mind. It was cool to see dance in a different perspective. I really enjoyed the time I spent with those girls. 

Overall, I believe that this community service changed my outlook on dance. It has made me really appreciate and understand my coaches better. I learned a lot from those two days. I learned that I strongly dislike cleaning but actually enjoy organization and teaching dance. This is a good project for students because it allows them to help out in their community and discover what means the most to them. It breaks that feeling of timidness that all high schoolers have about volunteer work. I truly think that this project gives people the nerve to interact with others and help make a change for someone. I think this project should be required but I feel like ten hours is kind of excessive. Most students are very busy with sports and other activities which makes ten hours very hard to find someone that can comply to all of those dates and times. 

Sara and I dance at planet almost every single day and whenever we found out about this project we automatically knew we wanted to help out at our favorite place. We are always talking about how disgusting the floors are and how chaotic the building is. We do not have anyone that maintains and cleans up Planet so it’s always messy. 

On September 6 I worked from 5:30-9:30 and on the 7th from 3:00-9:00. On the first day we were given a list of chores. First, we organized all of the new clothes for the youth and mini team. We were given a box of clothes and a list of sizes and had to get all of their stuff into one pile, fold them, write the name of that individual on a sticky note and put it on top, and then organize them on the table based off of their team. Everyone got a shirt, shorts, and a tank top. This took us roughly two hours. Next, we helped clean the whole studio. We completely cleaned and mopped the bathroom and organized all of the cleaning supplies in there as well. Then, we went around sweeping up all of the bobby pins and nasty hairs on the floors. We also picked up any leftover water bottles and empty food bags and threw them in a garbage bag. Lastly, we took our big bag of trash to the dumpster. 

The second day we helped coach the youth and minis team of Planet Dance. They had back to back practices because some of them compete on both teams. First, we helped Maddy coach the youth team at 3:00. We gave them corrections and even demonstrated how to do specific things correctly. When their practice was over at 5:00 we helped to hand out their poms for the upcoming competition on Saturday. At 6:00 the youth team had begun their practice. They are coached by Brittany. We helped them to focus on the small technical skills that they lacked such as pointing their feet, development of legs in turns and jumps, and sharpness. Brittany had them use their wrist weights to allow them to get used to the feeling of extra weight so it will be easier for them to punch their arms when they take them off. Then, since Sara had finished her community service I stayed after with Brittany and helped her hand out poms and bows for that team as well as rhinestone their uniforms for their competition.