Briefly describe the group with whom you led a discussion.

This was a group of youth service volunteers who mostly worked in environmental and park service areas in a Northeastern state. We had about ten participants at this first discussion.

Briefly describe the program you led.

We read Brooks' poem aloud at the table after we ate lunch at a Chinese buffet restaurant. I chose this text because it generally allows participants to criticize the motives of the members of the Ladies Betterment League, while also allowing them to admit to a little bit of their own "loathe-love" for those they are trying to serve.

How did it go?

I had read this poem to begin a discussion at least three times before, and this was perhaps the least successful of the three. We began by asking who the ladies were and what their motives were. I also asked about the concept of loathe-love and about whether and why it is necessary to have personal connections with those you are trying to help.

What, if anything, would you do differently?

The environmental issues that this group deals with are significantly different from the issues of poverty and race that Brooks’s poem raises. With environmentally-based groups in the past, I have used William Baxter’s work "People or Penguins" or selections from A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.

Anything else?

The issue of race turned out to be a difficult one to address in the first discussion.

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