1. We made all the gifts. That's why it's hilarious that they charged our parents exorbitant fees for the materials to make the gifts. 90% of the shit we made was garbage. Business as usual - find every item and over charge the customer for it as often as possible.
At Benchmark they did this with "Building Trades". Ultimately, parents were charged for this "class" as part of the program. Everybody gets to make a dresser, lamp, coffee table, etc... They use the crap stuff built to furnish the "student" apartments. The good stuff is sold off to the locals... Think about it: high quality, hand made furnature (and they actually did teach us how to build stuff well, i'll give them that)... You can make a mint off that. Free all day labor too!
2. It's not like a real secret santa program. For a week or so we just made gifts for family /friends. It was called santa's workshop.
Holy shit! that is what it was called at Benchmark too... though it probably shouldn't surprise me given it's a CEDU clone
Hell, I can't even remember the secret part. From a CEDU perspective You'd expect the staff to make sure we followed through on the secret gifts and call us thoughtless losers for not doing so.....but I don't recall any of that. I think they knew life was hell at Xmas and didn't want to touch that sore spot.
Ok. Here's what Benchmark staff did: we had a secret santa system as well... everybody's name was put in a hat, shaken up, and picked out randomly by students(the random part turned to be a really dumb idea). We were then bussed to wal-mart where we were each given 10 dollar gift cards to spend on a present... I forgot what I got but I remember I did not like it... Turns out my secret Santa had a sense of humor and wasn't exactly fond of me.
Apart from that, the only present I got from my parents (gameboy advance) was confiscated by staff "til level 2, and you write a proposal to be allowed it back"...
I was actually one of the few who was allowed the "privilege" of a visit with my parents on Christmas, but only because a death in the family corresponded with that holiday, my parents kept insisting, and they couldn't really refuse. They did get the requested visit cut short to a week, though... The first few days I was silent about what went on at Benchmark.
I was afraid of the consequences. I knew they would tell benchmark what I was saying(I was right). I was afraid they wouldn't believe me (i was right)... but when they introduced me to this Christian friend of theirs who was offering a place at this local group home. I, of course, accepted... I can deal with the fish-folk... Most of em are pretty cool. My parents went "ooh... He is willing to go to a religious place!" and decided to take me out of Benchmark. Benchmark later on successfully convinced my parents that I was manipulating them by playing the religious angle as bait to get taken. As I understand it, "manipulating" is when a person selectively used information, exaggerated, or lied to get something done. Simply put, I was willing and very happy to do do what my parents wanted me to do by going to this new place and I did not have to lie. I figured it couldn't possibly be worse than Benchmark. The only information I might have omitted about Benchmark I did so because I believed my parents would not believe me (and that was probably wise of me to do).
So I went back to program, waiting for my parents to arrange transportation and things in DC... A few days later, I get called into Carl's office (parent rep). He tells me that my con is up and that I'm not getting out. I'll post more on this later.
