Week 12: Project Progression
1506 words by kateyjames
The project I have chosen to implement is poverty. Throughout these last few weeks my project has been almost fully carried out. I spent a lot of time on my project, and I feel that I have made a difference in some individual’s lives around the world. As I spent time at Second Harvesters Food Bank, I helped many others by providing food to hungry children. Many children throughout the world are starving because of lack of food, and by devoting my time I am providing food to help nourish those children. Second Harvesters Food Bank is a wonderful organization that devotes all of their time in providing food for starving individuals. While at the food bank, my group and I helped package bags of food for local elementary school children. We spent time packaging food bags, counting the number of bags, and placing them in various crates that were ready to be shipped out. Each crate was labeled and sent out to many local elementary schools around New Orleans. This is not the only service Second Harvesters provides. The food bank also takes in unwanted canned goods and salvages the food that is still able to be consumed. The company ships food items out around the world, and helps provide aid to those in need. The company has many trucks that ship out food items all across the world. While volunteering at the food bank, one might have been given the chance to unload or load the trucks with various food items. This food is then processed through multiple sorting methods. While volunteering at the food bank, I have learned many things about poverty, and how others are working hard to help aid in people’s suffering. I was surprised to discover my group and I were not the only ones volunteering at Second Harvesters. There were many other people from other states that travelled to Louisiana not to visit the landmarks and shop, but rather to help improve the issue of poverty. The particular group that helped my classmates and I were from California, which is a huge distance to travel just to volunteer. I was amazed at these people’s devotion, and they drove me to work harder on my project. I was extremely excited as I discovered that other people, apart from our group, were devoting their time to the issue of poverty also. Volunteering makes a huge difference and we have been encouraging others to volunteer, but that is not the only thing that my project consists of. Jennifer, Demetria, and I have also put out our boxes around the school. We placed the boxes around the campus in the most populated areas, in hopes that our fellow students and professors will donate some unwanted items to the hungry. Hopefully the canned food drive will have a great turnout, and we will be able to provide a substantial amount of food to people in need. Our group is also open for suggestions, and we have talked to other individuals about ways to improve our project. We have received a lot of feedback on the project, and the workers at Second Harvester’s feel that we are making a big difference on the issue. We are also planning to provide surprising statistics on our flyers, to make others aware of how serious this issue truly is. Most people do not realize how big the issue of poverty is because it is not directly relating to them. After reading statistics, hopefully others will realize how imperative it is to improve this issue. The project is coming along great, and I hope our services will help the issue of poverty improve substantially.
Here is the flyer we are posting around the school to help inform our fellow classmates of the issue of poverty.
The definition of counter cultural is, “A culture with lifestyle and values opposed to those of the established culture.” Based on this definition one can conclude that Jesus was counter cultural. During the time period of Jesus people in Jerusalem would punish others for committing crimes and sentence them to death, by crucifixion. This was a time period in which many people suffered and were treated horribly for crimes. I feel that Jesus was counter cultural because he always treated everyone equally. Whether an individual was a man or a woman they were treated with complete respect, and were given equal rights according to Jesus. During that time women were inferior to men, and were not allowed to do things that men were able to do. Jesus looked at women as equals, something that no one during that time period did. Not only if someone was man or woman, but even if that individual betrayed Jesus just as one of his disciples did, Jesus did not punish that individual. Jesus claimed himself to be the King of the Jews, and he acted differently from the other kings of that time period. Most kings during the time of Jesus acted immorally, and killed people of their country for committing minimal crimes. Some followers were even killed for simply being accused of committing a crime even though they actually never committed it. Jesus never favored a particular person, and treated everyone completely equal which is totally opposite of what the other kings during that time period did.
I feel that my project is counter cultural, because nowadays most people do not take the time to recognize problems going on in the world. Most people in today’s world actually cause the issue of poverty by wasting food and littering. On the other hand, my group and I are doing the exact opposite of what most people in the world do. We are devoting our time to help improve the issue rather than doing things that will make the issue worse. We are also providing information to help inform others so that they will stop polluting the world and wasting unwanted food. We are encouraging people to donate food to the hungry which is not something that is normally done in today’s society. By our project being counter cultural, I feel that it is making a difference because my group and I are doing things that most people in the world do not.