enJOY Life
"I was inspired to make my project as successful as possible because I wanted to honor my grandmother."
INSPIRED TEAM OF VOLUNTEERS
REDESIGNED HOSPICE WING
CREATING DECORATIONS
ENGAGING LOWER SCHOOL STUDENTS
BUTTERFLY DECORATIONS
Background Information
Emma Scott Singletary has lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana her whole life and hoping for a new challenge in her life, she decided to attend Alzar School in the fall of 2015. During seventh grade, Emma Scott lost her grandmother to a short battle with cancer. Her grandmother spent the last four weeks of her life in “The Butterfly Wing,” a hospice care unit at the Baton Rouge General Hospital that specializes in having patients come in at the last minute when things take the turn for the worst. Emma Scott will never forget when she and her sister brought their grandmother a bouquet of flowers on Easter morning and a huge smile came across her face. Emma Scott’s grandmother lost her battle to cancer a week after Easter and she remembers how hard it was for her family to watch someone they love suffer during a holiday season. When asked to identify an issue in her home community, Emma Scott knew she wanted to get involved with the Butterfly Wing because she had noticed the lack of joy the area had. Emma Scott had never heard of the Butterfly Wing until she had a family member there, so she wanted to create a community at her school that would be willing to learn more about Hospice Care and help create a more joyful environment at the Butterfly Wing.
I thought having a personal connection to my project would make me an emotional wreck but instead I was inspired to make my project as successful as possible because I wanted to honor my grandmother.
– Emma Scott Singletary
Implementation of Project
Once Emma Scott returned home from Alzar School, she quickly got to work on setting a date for her action day and three dates for lower school art preparation days. Evelyn Ramirez, who is the volunteer coordinator for Hospice Care of Baton Rouge, loved the idea of enJOY life and helped Emma Scott for the three months leading up to action day. Together, they brainstormed ideas, arranged logistics and set up the date for enJOY life action day. Emma Scott had compiled six of her classmates to be on her action team and they began working together as a team by having a bake sale to help fund enJOY life.
enJOY life could not have been done without my action team & Evelyn, I will never be able to thank them enough for the hard work, time, and encouragement they gave me!
– Emma Scott Singletary
enJOY life could not have been done without my action team & Evelyn, I will never be able to thank them enough for the hard work, time, and encouragement they gave me!
– Emma Scott Singletary
Implementing enJOY life was a two-step process consisting of three Lower School art preparation days and one action day at the Butterfly Wing. First, Emma Scott and members from her action team worked with three different lower school art classes at her school during their free studies to create colorful butterflies that would later be used to decorate the Butterfly Wing. During the Lower School art preparation day’s, action team members spent their time laughing and painting as the students got to hear the high school students share ideas and the reason behind why they were creating these butterflies. It was a time for younger and older kids to spend together while creating art that would help lighten up the Butterfly Wing. The second part of implementing enJOY life was the big action day at the Butterfly Wing. On March 19, 2016, fifteen high school volunteers showed up in their enJOY life t-shirts ready to learn about Hospice Care, specifically at the Butterfly Wing, and decorate the area. Volunteers learned that they would need to remain quiet throughout the morning because the patients would be able to hear them and they were also told how to appropriately react if they saw a family member walk out of a room in a state of devastation. Emma Scott thought this would be the largest challenge of the day, but her volunteers blew her away with their professionalism.
At the end of the day Evelyn asked me if I would be interested in doing this project in the future, she also made a compliment on how incredible the volunteers were!
– Emma Scott Singtlary
Results of Project
Emma Scott walked away from her action day with a smile on her face knowing there was decorated bouquets of paper flowers to be delivered to patients and colorful butterflies hanging from the ceiling. Twenty-five people were involved with action day and thirty-seven people were involved with Lower School art preparation days for a total of thirty-two hours of community service. But, most importantly Emma Scott was able to bring together a community from her school that that helped create a more joyful environment at the Butterfly Wing.
My favorite part of this whole project was when a volunteer came up to me and said, “I just had a woman tell me nobody has ever done anything like this before, it is truly incredible.” It helped me realize that all the hard work had paid off.
– Emma Scott Singletary
What’s Next?
Emma Scott will continue to challenge herself with new leadership opportunities this summer when she will serve as a SALT (service and leadership training) at her summer camp in North Carolina and this school year as a writing fellow for her school’s Writing Center. Emma Scott will also serve on the Alzar School Advisory Committee for the 2016-2017 school year. enJOY life will become a partnership program with her school’s Center for Service Learning and she has already set up multiple dates for enJOY life to occur throughout the school year. Emma Scott will graduate from Episcopal School of Baton Rouge in 2017 and will continue her education in college where she dreams of studying mass communication, interior design, and dance.
I am confident that the leadership skills I learned at the Alzar School and by doing my CLP will benefit me for the rest of my life; I cannot wait to see the new opportunities I will have because of this experience.
– Emma Scott Singletary