Each time I teach WRIT 1133 as a service-learning course, I like to invite you, the students, to reflect on your previous experiences with both volunteering and the issue we’re focusing on in this section—homelessness. To enhance your experience and the writing community that we’re beginning to form, I think we owe it to each other to understand our perspectives on both these issues.
So let me lead by example. All my life, I’ve been engaged in some sort of volunteer activity, some sort of community engagement. (It all started with the Cub Scouts in the second grade …) Looking back on these experiences, I see that they laid a foundation for the values I cherish as an adult. It’s very clear to me that I find meaning in sacrificing for others, in cultivating humane communities that bring out the best in all of us, and in working, even in small ways, to make the world a better and more just place.
But as much as I believe in the importance of this work, I also recognize that perhaps even more important (and more selfish) is the meaning that such works brings into my life. Serving others and engaging in a number of different communities over the years has expanded my worldview and allowed me to confront issues I might never have seen had I remained isolated in my own individual life. And as much as I value this life, I’m fairly sure it’s not enough. Certainly not enough if I want the work I do to enhance our world and improve it (or at least leave it less damaged) for the next generation.
Before class on Tuesday, I’d like you to consider some of these questions and post a comment in response to them: What are your experiences with volunteerism, service-learning, civic engagement or other related kinds of activities? What draws you to this kind of work? What does it mean to you? More specifically, what experiences have you had working with people who are homeless or who are living in poverty? What questions do you have about these issues? What do you hope to gain from our course?
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During high school I became earnestly interested in volunteering. The summer of freshmen year, I found myself bored to tears at home, so I began researching different volunteer opportunities. From that point on, I helped out in different events and for different causes: handing out medals at the end of a marathon, helping to refurbish a local children’s museum, boxing relief supplies to send to Sri Lanka. Odd jobs like this often took up only one day. For me, volunteering has enabled me to improve my community in a small way, do something purposeful, and experience connection with people from a variety of backgrounds. I’ve always enjoyed the novelty of it, doing new activities and meeting new people, as well as the idealistic component of it, working for a better world.
ReplyDeleteOn one of my one-time volunteering stints, I served dinners at a homeless shelter in downtown Portland. Besides that, I have not had very much experience working with homeless people. From this course, I hope to gain a better understanding of the people who live on the street. What series of events lead to their homelessness? Are there sufficient government resources in place to help them better their situation? What can I do, as a university student, to help?
I grew up in a family of activists. You can say that’s it’s more than a family tradition, it’s in my blood. When the Chicano’s and Latino’s in the west called for social justice the movement started here in Denver and became known as The Crusade for Justice. All of my family were all active members and participated in all the protests and demonstrations from West High School Blowout, to The Bombings on Downing Street. They all dreamed of a way to progress our people and bring us the rights we deserved as human beings. This mindset is how I grew up and I apply to every aspect of my life.
ReplyDeleteI have been involved with aspects of helping others what ever the case may be for as long as I can remember. I’ve volunteered my time everywhere from the La Raza Youth Leadership Program to homeless shelters. I have a drive to provide justice and help for all those who need it. I feel compelled to do this, coming from a people who were oppressed and still are, I understand there has to be those who will work for change to make it happen and I am one of those people.
I don’t come from the richest family in the world, and coming from a neighborhood where I see poverty everyday I want to change it. I want to change the fact that poverty is a cycle, and the feeling I get when I know I can help break that cycle is the most self fulfilling feeling in the world.
The only real problem I see is why isn’t there enough drive in people to want to change the problem. The only people who seem to want to change issues are those who have experienced it, or something like it. It’s good that these people are involved but we need to get the people who have no idea what it’s like to be in poverty or oppressed involved, so they will want to do something about it as well. I hope that this class can allow me to see more youth who care about these issues and want to change them.
My schools have always emphasized civic engagement. In elementary and middle school, we would spend one day every year doing service. The most memorable was when we went to a safe house for women and planted a garden. My high school gave us a number of hours that you were required to complete. This really opened my eyes to civic engagement because we worked in a community that was not affluent and had issues with crime. We worked with the homeless, the disabled and tutored young kids.
ReplyDeleteMy most memorable experience in working with the homeless was at the Rescue Mission program in Milwaukee. It is a homeless shelter that offers shelter, medical care, and food. One evening we worked on the food service line and the one thing that stood out in my mind was the appreciation of these people. My friends and I all agreed, they were the most friendly and appreciative people that I have met. The character of homeless is what draws me in to helping them out, they are a group of people that draws a bad stigma, but is so appreciative of any assistance.
In taking this course, I hope that I make a difference in the lives of those who are struggling and change the negative image these people have.
Community service has always been a great interest of mine. I started doing community service projects in middle school. Some included going to ranches and planting flowers, and working with elementary school kids. Then in high school we had a community service requirement every year where I did a lot of different things like volunteer at a reading for the blind place, and teach spanish to people. In between my junior and senior years I went on a service trip to Nicaragua which was one of the most enlightening and fun trips I've ever been on. We built a house for one family and worked during the says at a children's school and tutoring older teenage girls. I saw a lot of homeless people there, or people who lived in houses made of plastic and wood. It was definately an eye opening experience to see people living in a whole new level of poverty than just the homeless people that I see in the streets of cities and such. I haven't done as much community service as I've wanted to since coming to DU which is really why I wanted to take this class and I think it will be interesting to do service and then relate it to writing and research. I think it's very important to not be ignorant and to see how others live and do as much as one can to help improve the lives of others. I hope to continue doing service throughout my time at DU and for the rest of my life.
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ReplyDeleteEver since I was little, my parents instilled in me the value of volunteerism and civic engagement. They encouraged my sister and I donate our extra money to charity. Then, a few weekends throughout the year my dad and I would pick up trash in Rock Creek Park near my house with a group of volunteers. While these first few experiences introduced me to volunteerism, I became more interested in community involvement as I got older.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, I became more engaged within the community through the student organizations with which I was involved. Each year the Student Government Association would raise money for an organization in need. We raised money for the Tsunami Relief Fund, donated to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund, and helped provide books for a school in Africa. Although it is helpful to donate money, I wanted to directly impact people within my own community. Through the National Honor Society, I began volunteering as a tutor for children ages 6-17. Now I have continued my involvement in educational volunteerism by helping students from South High School in Denver apply to college. South High School educates students from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds.
Once I started volunteering at South High School, I became more interested in poverty issues. I then attended the El Pomar Leadership Summit Leaders Wanted: Uniting to End Poverty which opened my eyes to the limitations people living in poverty must endure. We did a poverty simulation in which we were given a certain amount of money and had a variety of tasks to complete. Every 15 minutes represented another week and each week new challenges arose. It seemed almost impossible to survive with so little money and so many responsibilities. This experience illustrated how much more we must do to end poverty.
Over spring break, I worked with Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans and saw not only impoverished areas but also devastated communities. While in New Orleans, we built the foundation of a house, installed the sub-flooring and constructed the scaffolding of one wall. As I was walking away from the building site on our last construction day, I stopped to talk to a neighborhood resident. She explained to me that Algiers, the area where we were building, was one of the oldest districts in the state of Louisiana. She then mentioned that the area remains in poor conditions because no new stores and businesses develop within this district. The government continually overlooks her town causing a lack in the economic development of that area. By talking to a woman who experiences poverty first-hand, I recognized even more the necessity for civic-engagement related to poverty issues and homelessness.
Through this course, I hope to learn more about poverty issues and use this new knowledge to promote a change within my own community. Someday I would like to work for an organization dedicated to reducing poverty and homelessness and I think that this course will help prepare from a job in that field.
Living in America it always blows my mind to see or hear that poverty and homelessness still exist in the wealthiest and most developed nation in the world. It just makes no sense. In my family civic engagement has taken on a whole other meaning, my uncles and aunts work for the United Nations, and as did my father, and my aunt is very heavily involved in the womens' rights movement in Ethiopia. Being socially active and aware is not only a characteristic in my family its purely a passion.
ReplyDeleteMy past experiences range in terms of being active in my community, here in Denver during my high school years i was heavily involved with community service projects with organizations such as Rotary International, The Denver Rescue Mission, and The Colfax Community Network. My favorite one to work with was the Denver Rescue Mission by far because I learned alot about peoples experiences and their different backgrounds and such.
My passion though doesn't lie in the homelessness or the poverty here in America it lies back home in Africa where the levels of poverty are so extreme and deadly. When i was younger many street children would always come by our guarded compound and would beg for anything you could offer them. To me it never made any sense why i was on one side of the fence and why they were on the other side. As i got older and deeper in my faith I have started understanding the purpose of my life and how much It includes reaching out and helping others so they can in turn do the same. I see myself in third world countries in East Africa helping to create infrastructure that could lead to sustainable development, because there is too much focus on the short term help. I want the programs we create to flourish for generations after we have left. This is my civic engagement duty, far off but so close to home for me personally.
My previous service experience reaches back quite a way. Most of the schools I attended placed a large emphasis on giving back. My more important volunteering experiences came in high school when I participated through National Honors Society and DECA. I spent time helping out every week at a local middle school, I participated in and help to set up a 5k run for charity, I assisted to organize a fund raising competition that would raise money for a school program in Ethiopia. Volunteering at the middle school was a great experience but working so in-depth with Project Mercy (the 5k run and the fund raising competition) was the really enriching experience. It gave me a thorough look into a completely different walk of life. It can be hard to imagine other ways of life so I really value the opportunity I had to gain insight and I look for it in other service opportunities.
ReplyDeleteIn college I have been doing service through the Pioneer Leadership program, namely working with Project CURE on various assignments so that they may concentrate on their mission of sending medical supplies to places in need. I also spent a few nights volunteering at a homeless shelter serving dinner. Besides those few nights I have not had much experience with homelessness and it will be good to have a chance to do my part to help the problem.
Sometimes problems seem so huge that whatever contribution one can personally make seems inconsequential. Yet if everyone were to stop helping because they felt that their personal contribution does not make any real difference, then there would not be any progress made and problems would only get worse. I believe that it is very important to do something, no matter how small. In addition to doing my part, hopefully my time with Project Homeless Connect will give me more insight into another person’s life and circumstances, which will lead me to be more open minded and understanding in the future.
I have had many experiences dealing with volunteerism. My first experiences came around fifth grade. I was in a program called LTP. LTP stands for Leadership Training Program. It was a program designed for fifth through eighth graders to learn things such as etiquette, civic engagement, and volunteerism. Through this program, I helped plan a carnival for underprivileged youth in St. Louis. It was a small carnival, but the children that came loved the experience. My experience in LTP resonated in my continued efforts to reach out to the community.
ReplyDeleteThroughout high school I was part of the Outreach service club. We went to different sites to provide help to different groups of interest. My favorite site was a place called Mary Ryder Home. Mary Ryder Home is an assisted living home for the elderly in poverty. I became the site leader for Mary Ryder Home my junior year of high school, and I led a group of students to Mary Ryder Home every Monday throughout junior and senior year. We played games, colored pictures, and talked to the residents. One of the most interesting visits I had to Mary Ryder Home was around Thanksgiving my junior year. The activity we had planned for that Monday was to color a turkey and write things we were thankful for in the turkey’s feathers. I had the pleasure of working with Ana, one of the residents who had never learned to read or to write. She called out ideas, and I wrote them in the feathers. Ana was most thankful for food, water, and a roof over her head. Ana was homeless after her parents died, which was 20 years prior. She had been living in Mary Ryder Home for three years, which meant that she had spent 17 years on the streets and in shelters. Ana was so very thankful for the help she had received from Mary Ryder Home. This opened my eyes to different styles of life. I had never met anyone with Ana’s background, and I was very interested to hear about it. I would talk to Ana on a regular basis, when visiting Mary Ryder Home. Her story inspired me to continue volunteering with those in poverty in hopes that I can help them.
Before coming to the University of Denver, I applied for the Pioneer Leadership Program. I have volunteered at many places through the program, such as Warren Village, Brown Elementary, and South High School. After coming to a new city, getting involved seemed to be a good way to learn about my new city as well as to engage myself in different areas of the city.
From this course, I hope to expand/change my worldview. I also hope that by working on Project Homeless Connect, I am able to learn about the issue of homelessness as well as aid a person who otherwise would not have received the help he or she needs. I would like to learn how to approach a homeless person and be sensitive to their background while still learning about them and helping them.
Throughout my life my mother has always taught me there are people who are less fortunate than me. My mother is a highly compassionate person. At a young age, she would take the whole family to pick up trash by the beach, take us to food bank to help out if we can’t make it to the food bank that month she would make donations. I learned from her as a young child. When I was in second grade, one of my classmate’s father passed away in a construction accident. Due to the classmate’s social economic status his family does not have health insurance. Therefore, they had no money to pay for funeral expanses. I remembered I had urged my whole class to raise money for my classmate’s family by doing a bake sale. From that day on I had dedicate my life to volunteerism.
ReplyDeleteIn high school, I had join many volunteer projects, such as going to visit Veteran’s hospital, create a campaign for elementary school students to brush their teeth properly, habitat for humanity and many others. Volunteer work was fun, however, I felt I didn’t learn anything from the experiences. About few years ago I encountered Colorado Anti-Violence Program, is a non-profit dedicated to eliminate violence against Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer communities in Colorado. I was hooked on CAVP because bias-motivated violence, domestic violence and sexual assault happens everyday and I believe these are the issues people don’t address everyday. I have been involved with CAVP for almost a year.
Working at CAVP, I often encounter queer youth being kicked out of their homes by their parents. People in poverty do not choose to be in poverty, there are multiple factors in society to create poverty. Social mobility seems to not exist in the current system. I have always wondered what are the solutions to end homelessness? What does society or government as a whole need to do end poverty? What are the main factors of homeless? I hope to acquire answers to these questions from this course. I yearn for more knowledge on the subject.
I have always been surrounded by influential adults who have done great things with their lives, but also take the time to help people like me grow as they did. Having such strong leaders helping me to grow has been a main reason why giving back is such a big part of my life.
ReplyDeleteIn my high school years, I was on the board of the STAND Against Genocide; I was part of the Peer Group Leaders program, and Physical Education Leaders. Outside of school I attended a spiritual self-exploratory retreat called “Kairos” in the spring of my junior year. Following the powerful weekend, I chose to lead the next retreat in order to make the retreat just as rewarding for the coming participants as it was for me. The six months of preparation we went through as leaders was a challenging, but amazing experience. I have found myself actively listening to others, understanding varying perspectives on an increasingly philosophical level, and gaining much more patience with other people. Through my experiences with Kairos, I was able to get to know people from my high school that were suffering from some serious issues. I learned more than I ever expected, and all the people I got to know were extraordinary. I then worked at the Youth Office of the church every day after school, and most of the work I do is to help plan the semi-annual Kairos retreat. I love having the opportunity of sharing this great experience with other people.
As a child, I was send to a YMCA summer camp every year. It was an extremely rewarding experience, teaching me to be myself and guiding me towards leadership. Over the past 3 years, I have made my own contributions to the camp by working there as a counselor. This past summer, I was the counselor for a girl in 6th grade named Xochtil. She had received a scholarship to come to camp, and was from a very underprivileged family. She was having a hard time interacting with most of the other girls in the cabin. One of the first few days, during their free time, Xochtil expressed her angered feelings through violence. When my co-counselor and I were talking about it with her when we found out, she broke down and explained many of her family problems. She had grown up with family members who had also expressed their emotions using violence, even to her directly, which had severely affected her. After talking through it with us, she was able to channel her negative feelings into something more positive: talking it out with someone. After our two weeks with her, she considered us positive role models, learned how to better express her emotions, and connected with a group of girls her age. It was amazing to see her grow. I think that community engagement and working with the underprivileged is extremely rewarding on both ends. I am interested in researching the topic of poverty and homelessness further, and getting hands on experience with working with the homeless. I think I will learn a lot about communication with diverse groups of people, and learn to appreciate what I have had in my life a lot more.
My first memory of volunteering is going to a place in downtown Albuquerque called St. Martin's Center and serving breakfast to the homeless. My dad and I always signed up to make a green chili casserole, and we would bring the food over to the center with the other volunteers at 7 am. We usually got help unloading the food from our cars, and although it made me feel appreciated, I didn’t feel as if this was what I sought to gain from the experience. Sometimes the people at the center would return a smile or start a conversation, and sometimes they wouldn't. Either way, I always had a wonderful time serving, but I'm just now beginning to understand why. I didn’t volunteer to feel like I was a better person, although I don’t think I would feel good about myself if I was not a volunteer. I volunteered because I felt that it was necessary to be aware of these peoples’ situations, and if I had the ability to give someone a meal, then why shouldn’t I?
ReplyDeleteAs a volunteer in Nicaragua my partners and I lived in a small town called Villa Sandino. We taught classes about health and creative expression, and facilitated two community projects: rebuilding a park and making public trashcans. The biggest obstacle that we faced was lack of motivation in our community. It was understandable. Why should these people care about making a park better or throwing away trash when many of them were struggling to find a steady job? I had gone through a year of training, and been educated about respecting cultural mindsets, lifestyles, and norms. For a long time I was very frustrated with the lack of motivation, but I realized that by trying to inspire people to take initiative and collaborate in their community you can create movement towards a different mindset. I don't think that a couple of volunteers in a town can achieve this in one summer, so I'd like to be more involved in service programs. We live in a society where leadership, innovation, resourcefulness, collaboration, and communication are valued, but many people do not. I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor to give people tools to increase their own utility, especially at the local level. At this level, preferences and priorities can be taken into account.
The other thing that I gained from my summer in Nicaragua was appreciation for my own lifestyle. I'm lucky to have received an excellent education, to be able to travel, to have unlimited job options, and to have a lot of time for leisure. I also realized that even though I have these things, I am envious of what the people that I lived with in Villa Sandino. They valued family and personal relationships above everything because that is what brought them the most joy. They were not obsessed with making it on time to five meetings in one day or buying the newest cell phone. The government would turn off the electricity at night, and we would sit by candles drinking cafe de leche and teaching each other card games. I don't know many people who spend that much time doing that even when they do have light. So, I probably learned more from the people in Nicaragua than they learned from me.
I am fascinated by cultural and personal exchange. I believe that understanding someone else's perspective can help you define your own. I believe that I should use my education, opportunities, and resources to improve other people's quality of life according to their standards. There are certain basic universal needs, and if some people are without them then how can we sit back and do nothing when we have resources to spare? How can we watch untouched bread be tossed out from our favorite restaurant when there are families who scour garbage piles for food every day? I think that reallocating resources is a critical element in fixing many problems that communities face on the global and local scale. Before we can look at more complex issues we have to accommodate basic needs, such as health, nutrition, and habitat. Shelter is a basic need, which is why I am excited to learn what we can do eliminate homelessness.
Another reason that I am excited to learn and take initiative towards eliminating homelessness is that I thoroughly enjoy service trips to other locations, but alleviating problems in my local community should be just as important to me. Sometimes we lose sight of the needs to the people in our community because the needs of other countries are overwhelming.
I am currently reading “The End of Poverty” by Jeffrey Sachs, and it is troubling and exhausting to read descriptions of the conditions that people live in, in places such as Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and they are not even considered homeless. Perhaps if we eradicate our domestic social problems, we can then be more generous in our efforts to help nations where dire living conditions are the norm for the majority of the population.
Throughout my life, my family has always instilled a passion for volunteer work onto me. It started with donating our Halloween candy to the Ronald McDonald House every year and then, as my bother and I got older, escalated to working in soup kitchens and volunteering at retirement homes. I have received numerous Presidential Service Awards and special recognition for my work in the community. Yes, helping others has always been a major part of my life, but until recently I had no idea how much I could learn from the people I was helping and how much of an impact they could have on my life.
ReplyDeleteIn my service-learning course first semester, we volunteered with an outreach program for homeless individuals in the downtown Denver area. On this program, two students would go with an outreach leader, walk up and down Colfax and hand out food and personal items that these people were lacking. During my experience with outreach, I met a man named Skip who undeniably changed my life. When helping him get the items he needed, Skip discussed his drug problem and how he was trying to find help. Skip was one of the most genuine and kind people I have ever come across and he completely changed my perception of the “average homeless person.” He was truly interested in getting back on his feet but he was drowning in a world of unacceptance and fear.
After my outreach experience, I have a new found respect for the homeless community. I hope that throughout this course I will be able to learn more about the reasons why people become homeless and the difficulty to get back on one’s feet. I also want to take advantage of working with Project Homeless Connect and be able to learn more about individual’s personal stories and backgrounds.
Here's Briana's response:
ReplyDeleteMy mother and father always taught me that there with privilege comes power and that power should be used to help others as well as yourself. From the age of seven, i have helped my mother put on puppet shows, donate essential life supplies, and read to local disadvantaged children during the holidays. My family also has a not-for-profit environmental education kids camp. I have helped my parents teach inner-city kids and cancer fighters to tackle ropes courses, learn how to build fires and identify wild plants. My parents believe that having a global perspective from a young age is very important. My mother, father and I traveled to Jamaica, Fiji, New Caledonia, the Cook Islands, as well as throughout the country volunteering with live improvement and cultural preservation endeavors.
When my family went to Jamaica in 2004, we traveled to two orphanages, one a boys home and the other a girls home. At these homes, my mother provided counseling services, my father worked construction, and I assisted them in both aspects. Many of the children I met had been orphaned due to AIDS, murder, or drug overdoses. These children had had extremely tough lives before being orphaned, and their lives became rougher still when they were orphaned and homeless. Despite their horrific pasts, many of the children were joyous, respectful, and patient. They did not really care about new clothes or toys, they simply wanted someone who would play cricket, soccer, or dolls with them. Observing their childlike faith and joy was a learning experience for me. They had traumatic histories and faced their own problems, but they did not let them define their lives.
The Fiji islands are some of the most beautiful islands i have every seen, but the social structure is closer to that of Lord of the Flies than the utopia it appears to be. They see themselves as poor and savage, even though the indigenous people own 98% of the land. They are happy, sing constantly and share whatever they have, but still fill the pull of materialism none the less. While there, the group I was with helped build simple homes, made sure some of the local children could attend school, and helped them look for jobs or plant gardens to sustain themselves. Helping the locals educate or employ themselves gave them purpose than to just be a tribal member. Their lives improved by simply having work to order their days. Soon many of them had increased self-worth and more optimistic outlooks.
Being raised with a high value on service learning and civic engagement has taught me how volunteering effect every aspect of ones life while improving another’s life in ways one may never know. Working with people from different circumstances than myself has given me a more diverse world perspective. Having a diversified world perspective has taught me how to be more understand and tolerant towards others. Seeing the impoverished yet joyful faces of so many people I worked with also taught me much about true happiness and joy, not to mention humility. I believe that by continuing to work with others in different circumstances than my self, it helps the community, their quality of life, and my level of cultural and spiritual understanding.
I have seen how poverty and homelessness affects tropical peoples, and I would now like to learn how it affects the people in my own area. I hope to learn what many of the causes of homelessness are, as well as what are the best , not most efficient, ways to help the homeless. I want to understand what I can do as an individual to help others better their lives wherever I live. I plan to better learn how write in the research method, and increase my knowledge of citation types and methods. I hope this course will give be an integrated view into the process and plight of the homeless, while also teaching me the proper technique to write about their stories and statistics.
Being the daughter of the Chairperson of the Black Caucus here in Denver, I am no stranger to volunteering. The bulk of my experience working in my community consists of working alongside my mom to help motivate black students to focus their attention on reaching their full potential. Specifically, we work to encourage these students to aim for college, and then turn around and make their goals a reality. To do this, I have been both a tutor and a mentor to inner-city black youth, helping them in areas that range from simple reading skills to calculus (I'm not sure even I would trust my math skills, but they seemed to appreciate my help nonetheless). Under my guidance, T've helped a lot of teens my age graduate, and their gratitude has made the work very worthwhile for me. It is work that I love doing, and something that I, as the first black valedictorian from my school, am very passionate about.
ReplyDeleteFrom a political standpoint, I have also helped my mother when she was helping the campaigns of different canidates running for different inner-city and state positions. This has always been my least-favorite form of volunteering - politics is such a sticky issue!
In high school, I was a member of 14 clubs and societies - 9 of which consisted of some form of volunteering or another. I was an executive board member in many of these programs, such as Black Student Alliance, National French Honor Society, National English Honor Society, Newspaper, A World of Difference, Link Crew, and DECA - just to name a few. My experiences in DECA were my favorite. Though DECA is a marketing club, my partner and I decided to make our senior project a community service written report. After watching the movie Invisible Children, we fell in love with the work that was taking place to save Africa's children. For our project, we had a school-wide movie night (showing the movie Invisible Children and serving barbque that was donated to our efforts by Jim N Nicks resturaunt) to help spread the word. Then, after our peers became aware of the situation in Africa, we hand-crafted custom t-shirts the read messages and sold these to our peers and staff (my shirt read "Do you see what I see?? Invisible Children). This continued to raise awareness. The final piece to our project was a fundraiser that took place at our school during lunches. In the end, we sent the money we made to the organization. Our project captured a lot of attention at the DECA State competition, and we were selected to present our project at the international competition, where we finished as finalists in our category. This project was very significant and fun for me, and I am still interested in the Invisible Children Organization to this day.
Over the course of my education I have had many experiences with volunteering, however the greatest experience I have had to date is “Shoes for the Sole”. I started this organization during my senior year and fundraised over $1000 and over 1000 shoes for children. This organization had no committees or constitution; my restless passion did not have time to waste. The shoes I collected were to be taken to the tribe in Chihuahua, Mexico over the spring break of my senior year. With the networks I had built throughout my four years in high school, I was able to tell my cause through 9News and local newspapers surrounding Northern Colorado. The outpour of support was amazing and I was genuinely overwhelmed with all of it. My high school didn’t have service-learning to the extent I needed, so I created my own and made lots of phone calls. It must be said that my passion for this project comes from many years of exposure to the harsh reality of poverty in Mexico, specifically in youth. Very young I realized that the only difference between me and the little girl standing on the corner is a border. Each summer since I can remember my family has driven to Mexico either to Hermosillo or Chihuahua, where my mother’s family is. With each trip for one day my mother and father would take my brothers and I into the cardboard box villages of their homeland. They did this not to guilt us into our fortune and blessings but expose us and then ask, “How can you change this?”. I am a third-generation Mexican-American and my parents feared I would lose the recognition of my grandparents sacrifice and become disconnected to who I am as their granddaughter. The epiphany that fueled this passion is when I was around nine years old. My mother, tia, primas, and I were walking to Sorona, the market when I saw a girl around my age. She had deep brown eyes like black coffee and the shuffle of her feet made her frown. This girl who could have been me was barefoot and begging. In that moment I gave her my shoes and she danced with her smile a joy all of humanity can understand. Since the time I was nine I have wanted to have a shoe drive and that is why my senior year I put together “Shoes for the Sole”. As my mother, father, uncle, and I neared the border I was restless with anticipation. I could see the children getting their shoes, I could feel that joy I held so dear once before. However, I and my 1,000 shoes could not cross. I was devastated and I sat on that border barefoot and begged them to let me in. Mexico did not want me to enter with my shoes and they shut the border down as I sat there and cried for every pair and every child I ever saw in the motherland of my heart. Now a little over a year the boxes sit in the basement of my father’s house. I have had opportunities to give them away and slowly I have been left with around 800 shoes that will wait until I regain power and confidence to try again. “Shoes for the Sole” was my first failure and my greatest lesson. It was the first time I worked with poverty and because of that experience homeless youth is my passion. I see it clearly now as more than just giving shoes but giving an opportunity through education and systemic change. This is why my education in International Studies helps prepare me to not only bust through a border, but borders all over the world.
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