Getting Involved: The Place 2B

Erika, Julie, and I decided that we would take advantage of our opportunity to help homeless teenagers by donating items to The Place 28 in Rock Island. They opened in August of 2010 and have helped over one hundred young adults in the Quad Cities area ever since. Some of their services include, but are not limited to: housing assistance, homework assistance, career exploration, and emergency food needs. In order to benefit the local homeless teens, Erika, Julie, and I have decided that we would donate a variety of items to the shelter. Erika plans to donate shampoo, Crayola markers, and individually wrapped after-school snacks. Julie plans to donate "anything I can find at my house." As for me, I hope to donate jeans for adolescent boys (I'm rading my little brother's closet), types of clothing, maxi pads, and sharpie markers for school work. We hope to make a difference with the local young adults by making these donations.

#1 - topic for community/world issues

1. One of the main topics I was interested in after our class discussions was the food insecurity issue. I feel like our area is really affected by this issue because I spend most of my nights working at a grocery store. I see how many people in Orion actually need government support and WIC checks. It's depressing and saddening to see how many people struggle with food in our community. I think the reason this has occurred is because our economy has gone from bad to worse and everything is a snowball effect. There are many ways to become in a bad situation financially, but when the issue of food becomes a factor, we have a real problem. I think we need to raise some major awareness over this issue and do all we can to support our local food bank. And Alie brought up an interesting thought in class about not only providing food for the food bank, but also food that isn't just junk food. 
2. I also found the topic of the dangers of smoking interesting. My mother is a smoker and my father was one. I know how it is to grow up in a  household where your parents have to go out to the garage after dinner to have a cigarette. I have a great understanding for why smoking is bad for your health, every one has a pretty good realization about it, and I think the next step is to deter high school students from starting the trend. Smoking is not as common as it use to be - there are more regulations to smoking around towns and it is no longer "cool" to smoke cigarettes. But there also have been new creations, like the electronic cigarettes, that the cigarette and tobacco companies are coming up with to try and have young adults become addicted to their product. If we raise enough awareness on this issue, perhaps even have an educational assembly or signs around the school, we could convince students that smoking is not okay. 
3. I think that one of the main issues that people are facing these days is education. Schools are where kids and young adults spend the majority of their time from age 6-18. For this reason, whenever someone thinks there is an issue in the schools, it is important to fix the problem as soon as possible.
   The issue concerning whether the state and school's methods of testing really reflect what the child learns in school has the potential to change the ways of learning all together. Is it really possible to judge someone's knowledge based on a test? We have all been graded and judged intellectually by use of tests, but are those tests actually proving that we have no idea what we are talking about, or just that the complete understanding is not there. People all learn on different scales and the world has made guidelines for how smart people should be. The pressures of having those good grades and keeping up studies can become overbearing and, at times, almost impossible. The old expression "Try Your Best" isn't what schools are focusing on anymore, they are more concerned with "Try Harder." A new medium may have to be reached between schools and students, not necessarily to make the material that students are learning easier, but to have the importance of tests and quizzes to be reduced. There are other ways to test a student's knowledge than having them fill out a piece of paper.