The follow-up study and benefit dinner

As introduced in the methodology chapter it was decided to do a follow-up study one year after the fieldwork. The goals was to explore long term youth perspectives on whether the agency, learning and identity formative outcomes of the program participation had persisted and was still seen as relevant in the lives of the youth. The following tale tells the story of how the field was re-entered and the youth re-recruited for these interviews.

148 Tale: The benefit dinner – re-union and recruitment

I returned to the field a few weeks before the interviews were planned to take place. As a first thing I discussed the intention of the interviews with the program director and asked to his knowledge of the present situations of the 9 youth that were key informants the year before, as a first step in making contact and inviting them to participate. My aim was to interview 5 of the youth with the main criteria for participation that these 5 represented different degrees of continuous contact with the program. As described earlier, the program in different ways strives to maintain an active network among its alumni ranging from continuous hiring of junior staff, using alumni as guest teachers or inviting youth to volunteer at different events that take place on the program farm or in the local community. In relation to this it was important to do the follow-up interviews with a group of youth that both had continued in a close collaboration with the program and thus stayed within its proximity whatever that may imply for an exploration of long term impact and with youth that had been in none or minimal contact.

The director had knowledge of 5 youth that met these criteria – 4 boys and one girl. Different ways of making contact and inviting the youth to participate was discussed and as the annual benefit dinner was coming up the director suggested to invite the 5 youth to volunteer at this event where they then could work together with me and the youth crew of the present year and I could reunite with the youth and invite them to be part of the follow-up interviews. Contacting youth from the year before to be volunteers at different events, the benefit dinner included, was a returning practice, so the specific youth would have been contacted anyway. The specific contact in this case implied an information about that I would be there and that I would like to invite them to do a follow-up, without detailing further about the interview content.

The benefit dinner takes place at the same venue every year under the open skies in the historical framework of an old missionary school. The more than 200 guests are arriving and welcomed by youth from the program who walk around the crowd with small tastings cooked and arranged by the youth together with professional chefs from a local restaurant. Under big redwood trees 10 beautifully set long tables with white tablecloths and an abundance of flowers from the farm are waiting for the guests to be seated. In a corner of the venue colorful boards with big posters with photos and short texts are informing about the program. On a string between two trees, laminated papers are hanging with individual portraits and testimonials from different youth telling what they learned from taking part in the program. After everyone has been seated, Byron in his welcoming note says how happy the crew is to meet the community. Then 7 youth currently working in the fall program enter the small scene and one by one they tell the audience about how the program has

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changed their lives. One youth makes a big impression on the guests when he repeatedly mentions that he has not had a sense of belonging to a family before now and this is the most important thing he found in the program. Another youth tells about how he gives the program a lot of the honor to help him in finally getting out of his drug habits. A youth tells about how she feels that the program has made her believe in herself and now has changed her self-image from being a bad girl and a troublemaker to be motivated to finish her high school and now gets only A’s. The very emotional oral testimonials from the youth have created an attention and responsiveness among the guests and people around me at the table where I am seated are very affected by the intensity of the stories. Then the dinner is served and the conversation at the table centers around the different stories told by the youth. After a while when the plates are getting empty the attention is again directed towards the stage when the mayor of the city enters the stage. In her speech she talks about that what makes sense for her to engage in politics is not sitting in the town hall and discussing budgets, but being in charge of a city where there are young people who experience such great changes as those in the program – after which she urges the audience to consider the importance of being generous in supporting these activities to continue. Then, and to the surprise of the program organizers, the mayor invites two youth to the stage to tell their stories. One tells how the program has helped him to come out of drug addiction, and the other talks about how he has been motivated to engage in politics and now has become a member of the city's youth council. The mayor comments on the two stories and says how they for her as a politician present pictures of hope for a better future, but also how the program actually makes a difference in the lives of young people - and in the larger picture helps to make the city a better place for all citizens. After a very big applause the focus is now returning to each of the tables where a table leader is opening a big envelope with smaller envelopes with cards where each guest can either place a check or they can note the amount they wish to contribute for later banking arrangements. After the envelopes have been filled and passed to the table chairperson the dessert I served.

The socio-political and cultural practice of American benefit dinners in general and this specific event in particular can be interpreted in several ways. For this concrete event however I will suggest to connect an understanding with another interpretation that has gradually been emerging throughout the fieldwork, namely the central role of storytelling in the program’s pedagogical approach as well as in the way the learning is constructed. From this perspective the benefit dinner can be interpreted both as a story in itself with a tension curve that is slowly built up for the two climaxes – the youth’s personal stories and the mayor's speech AND as an event that communicates and produces learning.

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The latter to be explored in the follow-up interviews that were about to be conducted with a special attention to how youth talk about what it does to them to see this year’s crew tell their stories.

As hoped all of the 5 youth were eager to participate and appointments were mad for the interviews in the weeks that followed. The purpose of the interview and the primary interview topic was also presented to the youth in an email I sent after they orally had agreed to participate at the benefit dinner. Here I invited the youth to tell me their program participation story – from the first contact and application decision to the present day. The interviews were scheduled to take place on the program farm in a newly established gathering tent at the corner of the field and took between 1 and 2 hours.