community service 4

This week was my last week of community service and completed my last two hours. On the last day, we went to another volunteers house whose names are Marty and Amy. They have three younger daughters who also volunteered: Jessica, danielle and sydney. My group all went to their house as a field trip together. when we got there we went in their backyard and made s'mores. I helped whoever didn't want to make their own and also to make it a more safe environment. The members also got to create and take home their own sand art which was very enjoyable. Some people needed help putting the sand into their decorative bottle. I made a sand art for one of the members: Jay. On the way back 2 members were arguing to sit next to me because they enjoyed my presence. This made me feel really good because it means that they liked me and wanted to be around me. There are so many different activities that we did but those are just a few. I really loved helping the disabled out because I got a lot out of it and I know they enjoyed it as much as I did. It felt good to be apart of a group that i have never really been apart of.  I know that anyone can make a difference in society and feel good about it like I did.

community service 3

The third week i created another 2 hours of volunteer. This week we changed groups. I was now in a group called outdoor adventures, where we do activities outdoors or pertaining to outdoors. I was kind of shocked that staff decided to put me in this group because i am not really an outdoorsy kind of girl. Although, I decided to leave all my doubts a side and just try and be involved with activities I do not normally do. That first week of being in that group we pitched a tent. This activity was more fun than i thought it would be and taught me how to do things I didn't know how before. During this activity i really got to bond with certain members of my group like Katie, Steven, Jay and Sam. these members were constantly asking me for assistance and i liked it i felt like i was important in having a role in this activity.

community service 2

My second week volunteering i completed another 3 hours. Each week we do a different task and this week I helped the members create chocolate covered snowmen. It was a cute idea that the staff got from a magazine. We wanted to be created so we followed the instructions and made it look like an actual snowman. I helped the members dip the pretzel in white chocolate to create the snowman and then we added eyes and a bow tye. The members really enjoyed making these and got a lot out of this activity. It was a great activity where everyone can communicate and help out.

community service 1

The first day of community service I completed 3 hours at the center for enriched living where i helped mentally challenged people. going into this experience for the first time I didn't know what to expect, although, everyone greeted me very nicely and made me feel welcomed. I was very nervous but the members made me feel a lot comfortable. During the time i was there the members in my group made pizza and i helped them to put on different toppings and spread the sauce for certain people. This was a really fun  lesson because everyone enjoyed making and eating their own mini pizzas. It was fun for me to because I got to help with the excitement of making the pizza.  After baking it the members got to eat it and enjoyed it very much we also made desert and everyone pitched in to help one another. Overall, amazing first day volunteering.

Race

In class Sal showed us a line up of balls and asked us to categorize them. People chose different categories from color to size to texture basically anything. These balls represented race in the lesson and it was obvious that it was hard to tell what race you are by looking. In class we played this online game that dipicts if you have implicit racism.We matched races to words blacks to bad and whites to good and then switched and chose positive words and negative words connected to the race as quickly as you can to see how racist you are. Most americans think they can tell what race someone is just by looking at them, including myself. For example, one day I was sitting with my friend at lunch and I look over to my guy friends table and there's a cute boy, so of course I tell my friend and ask who he is. He looked white so i asked, "do you know who that white boy is." she then looks at me and says, "Ali, he's not white he's puerto rican. I was really shocked just because he had light skin. It's crazy how people can think someone is a different race just by looking at their skin tone or how they dress.

Social class

In America people strive to become successful to make a large amount of money to support themselves or their families. In the beginning of this week I was well aware that there is different social classes within each community, however, I did not know it would be as divided as it is. There are so many different groups such as the low in poverty, the working class, the middle class, the middle upper class, and the rich or the upper class. If you want to move up this so called "scale" it is very hard and you really have to push yourself to do it. In the movie we were watching I was really shocked to see that the high school Anderson was kind of different from our high school.  In high school at Anderson one girl said, "If your not like us meaning not having the same amount of money or wear the same clothes, we won't associate ourselves with that group." Personally at our school I think certain clicks will not associate themselves with different clicks, but not because of money because of different factors. Although, I would say I am probably upper middle class, I still associate myself my people of different levels of social class. Some of my friends are more wealthier than me and some are a little lower financially than me. I do not care because I do not judge them based on how much money their families make. Although, my dad does have a friend that is very rich and has a lamborghini, while my dad and himself were walking to his car one day he kind of walked there like he was better than my dad trying to show off his new lamborghini, while my dad was not impressed by his rudness he decided he doesn't want to be friends with someone like that. Today they still talk once and a while but they never hang out anymore because my dad knows that he likes to show off what he has.

Justice System

I think it's terrible how most people in jail get treated like they are guilty when they didn't even have their court date yet to prove if they were actually guilty or not. While most are in jail to serve time because of wrong doings so may not be. People choices in life all go back to the environment that they were brought up in or friends they are influenced by. It's so sad to think that 66% of people who were in jail at one point go back after their release. Most want to change their lives around as seen in the movie but it obviously isn't as easy as it may seem for prisoners. Personally learning about the justice system is really interesting to me because i want to go into criminal justice for my profession. I know this lady that is a lawyer, but has a really good friend who is a criminal investigator and she told me that her and her friend have been working on this guy Juan's case for a while. They believe that he is innocent and did not commit the crime he was accused of. He has been in jail for 18 years and she told me it's really sad to see him because she is almost 100% sure he did not commit this crime, and that he is such a great person! Yes, most people in jail are probably guilty but there are those who are convicted of a crime they did not do and it's scary that the bad person can still be out there. I think it's horrible how some police in jail tend to judge inmates that "look" like criminals when sometimes a few of them can actually be innocent.