Final Blog

In the beginning of the semester we were asked to define ourselves in our first blog post. To be honest, back then I thought I knew who I was, but this semester has truly changed me. I don't think I could say that about any class. This class has taught me to think differently in ways I would have never thought, and has also showed me that I have such a huge impact on the world that I didn't even know about. I never really believed the phrase "one person can make a change.", but after this semester I truly believe in it. This class has also changed the way I think about community service as well. I always thought it would be a pain going out and completing 10 hours of community service, but after I found Feed My Starving Children, I realized how much of an effect I have on the world, and now I go there and volunteer just for fun! If everyone in the class feels the way I do, which I believe they do, I've got to say Mr.Salituro, you're one of the best teachers I have had in years. Thank you for making this class so enjoyable.

Feed My Starving Children Community Service #2

I loved Feed My Starving Children so much that I decided to come back on 5/24/13 to finish up my hours! There wasn't as many people as when I went on 5/22/13, but the experience was still the same. They played fun music and we all sang and danced while packing our food. I had the same job as last time where I bagged and weighed the food. I've never had such a great experience doing community service ever in my life. This food that we are packing is going all around the world saving lives, and I never thought I'd have that kind of impact on the world. Participating in Feed My Starving Children changed my whole worldview. I also went back yesterday, 5/29/13, even though all my hours were done because I had such a great experience, and that is something I never thought that I would ever do. This organization changed my life.
Feed My Starving Children
742 E Park Ave, Libertyville, IL
5/24/13 & 5/29/13
Person in charge: Sarah
Phone: 847.984.3846

Feed My Starving Children Community Service

On Wednesday 5/22/13 I volunteered at Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville, which is an organization that packages food and sends it to certain areas in certain countries where they need food. I had never done something like this in my life, so before I went I had no idea what to expect. I did not expect to have as much fun as I did. The experience as a whole was so amazing. I was the bagger where I held the bags while someone placed the food into them, then I weighed them to make sure that they were a certain weight to be sent out. The environment was so fun. They had music blasting and everyone was singing and dancing while packing their food. Everyone there was so kind and helped me if I had any questions, especially the staff. They are very outgoing a easy to talk to as well. I was definitely surprised with how much fun I had and how much the experience affected my life. That night we packed 80 boxes feeding over 17,000 children. I never realized that I could play such an important role in these children's lives. Driving there was about 30 minutes, then we volunteered from 8-930, and then drove back home totaling 2.5 hours!
Feed My Starving Children
742 E Park Ave, Libertyville IL 5/22/13
Person in charge: Sarah
Phone: 847.984.3846

A Safe Place Community Service

I volunteered at a walk for the organization "A Safe Place" which helps children or adults who have been abused, and gives them a place to stay. Before I went, I wasn't sure what kind of work I would be doing, but I knew I was going to support the cause, and donate $50 to the organization. The walk was held at Independence Grove. I went there 1st semester when I volunteered at the "Making Strides" walk for breast cancer. It's a great environment with a lot of open spaces. I worked with mostly adults in the beginning who were teachers that my mom works with from her school, and that is how I found out about this opportunity. They were all very generous, and happy that I came out to help them with the walk. When I got there I help set up the area by blowing up the balloons, and once the runners started coming I worked the food stand for a little, handing out fruit. Once the walk/run had started I was assigned an area in the middle of the walk, to direct the runners to the finish line. It really meant a lot to me to help A Safe Place because I personally know a few people who have been abused before. It surprised me the amount of people who came out to support this cause. I didn't think there was going to be as many people as there was. The entire day was about 5 hours, which seems like a lot but it flew by.
A Safe Place
Independence Grove, Libertyville, IL
8A.M.-12P.M. 5/4/13
Person in charge: Kate Stephan-Cothell
kcothell@asafeplaceforhelp.org

Crash

This week in Sociology we watched the movie Crash. Out of all the movies we have watched this semester this was by far my favorite. Race is a huge aspect throughout this movie. After watching this movie, it made me realize whether we know it or not, we are all racist whether it be explicit, or implicit.  During one of the scenes of this movie a cop pulled two black people over, because they were black driving in a nice car, in a nice neighborhood. He publicly harassed them to the point where his partner felt uncomfortable and asked to be reassigned. Yet when his partner was in the car with a black teen, when the teen reached into his pocket he automatically thought he was pulling out a weapon so he shot him "first" before the black teen could shoot him. Little did he know that the teen wasn't pulling out anything close to a weapon at all, but he actually was pulling out a religious figure that he kept with him in his pocket. What the cop did showed implicit racism. Even though that cop was trying to hard to not be outwardly racist, the fact is he still was because race shapes us, and as much as we try to not believe it, it's always in the back of our minds. Even though our society is obsessed with race, towards the end of the movie you began to see that all the different races depended on one another in different ways. Like the persian man thought of the little girl as his angel, and the white woman realized that her true friend was her asian housekeeper. It just shows that even though our society is obsessed with race, we need it.

Race

Last week in Sociology we talked about race. I learned that different cultures think of race in so many different ways. Here in America we think of race as usually white, black, asian, or latino. In Brazil they have 134 terms to describe "skin color" such as, ebony, deep bluish, off-white, greenish, yellowish, reddish, honey toned, cinnamon, tawny, cashew, chocolate brown, tint of coffee, milky, etc. They is no way to group human into distinct racial groups. It is all in social construction. In class Sal talked about how when he went to Japan he asked the people there what the different races were, and they said "Japanese people, and foreign people" so you are either Japanese or you're not, and that's all. Seeing how each culture describes their races shows that we create race ourselves, placing people into certain groups based on skin color. He also talked about how some Japanese people identify themselves by earwax! You either have dry/flaky earwax, or wet greasy earwax, depending on where your ancestors came from. So many people create race themselves, that there are no rules on race.

Social Class

A couple weeks ago in sociology we talked about social class. A lot of us don't realize how good we really have it because we have been living this way all our lives. Our district exceeds the average wealth percentage of the United States yet we don't even realize it. We are divided into three social classes, upper, middle, and lower. The upper class holds about 90% of our wealth, even though they are the smallest in population. It's unfortunate that the larger, and more populated social classes don't have as much wealth. This lesson showed me how fortunate I truly am to be living where I do and to have the amount of opportunities that I do. This lesson really helped me to open my eyes and made me so grateful for what I have.