Week 13: Accomplishments
1080 words by emilygray
I started off in the beginning of the semester with some really great plans. I was actually intrigued by the whole change the world idea. As with all good thoughts and things, they eventually came to an end. I had a great and rather comprehensive project idea that just did not happen. The organization that I wanted to join up with did not have anything local and I’m a very broke college student that cannot just donate tons of funds to charitable agencies. Hopefully this summer though, I plan to donate 5-10% of my check to the Heifer organization since there are no events that I can locally participate in at this time. I really do feel passionate about their organization and what they promote and want to do something to know that I am helping to spread the idea about their agency. Furthermore, I had intentions of doing a video and spreading the word about eating healthy. Overall, before this semester when I was trying to get my health on track I would have been a great advocate of this. Well this semester, I really fell off the wagon. I have found myself looking for the quick, easy, cheap alternative. I haven’t been cooking nearly as healthy as I usually do and just really haven’t cared about any of it. I feel like I barely have time to breathe with as much schoolwork as I have had to do this semester and I really haven’t focused any of my energy on being healthy. Therefore, I did not make the videos to post on YouTube. This mainly revolved around the fact that I just didn’t have time. Sure, I can pull up a nutrition website and post a few things in here about why its great website but I really felt like YouTube would have been the better way to get the message out to more than a few people. I am not sure in the future what I can do to make up for this but hopefully me getting back on track will be the first step.
So what did I actually do? Well I focused my project more on the idea of nutrition in regards to world hunger. I spent Saturday morning of my Easter break volunteering at the Greater Baton Rouge Foodbank. I spent the morning sorting food that would be distributed to local shelters, soup kitchens, food pantries, specific homes, and even given to “walk-ins” off the street. As I said in a previous blog, I actually did not know that the foodbank distributed food to so many different places. I thought they just delivered food to homes. It was interesting to see how much food they actually store and distribute to the community. The sorting including separating different food items from one another such as drinks/juices from cereals from canned goods, etc. and making sure that no expired or close to expired foods were left to be distributed. Although I have worked with this organization in the past, I still find it very rewarding knowing that what I am doing will directly and positively impact someone’s life.
I also read up and did a little research about the Foodbank when I got home since I really knew nothing other than what I had learned that day and what I had known about the Foodbank growing up in Baton Rouge. What I find most gratifying about this organization is that for every $1 they provide 10 meals for people. They only spend 1.77% of money that comes in on administrative costs. I think this is so important in today’s world of economic hardship because so many organizations spend exhorbant amounts of money on the people running the thing than on actually spending money on the cause they are promoting. They also help to feed more than 7300 people daily. In 2007 they were donated over 10.88 million pounds of food. It makes me think that if there were just even a handful more organizations that ran like this, there would be so many more people being helped on a regular basis. I also cannot really fathom 10.88 million pounds of food. I remember in elementary school, we used to bring canned goods for the foodbank on mass day. The grades that donated the most food would get rewarded at school. My school average no less than 10,000 pounds of food per school year and this is only a drop in the bucket of the millions of pounds that are collected annually.
I found it necessary to give a little info about the foodbank since I changed my project midway through the semester and did not give much info about it when I did so. So that is that! Hopefully my small volunteering has made some difference in at least one person’s life.
I did not take any personal pictures of myself sorting food at the foodbank but here is a picture of two ladies sorting food. This picture comes from a local Baton Rouge news station on www.2theadvocate.com
Why was Jesus crucified?
Jesus was crucified as believed by Christians to save them from there sin and come pay the ultimate price for the sins of all believers. Jesus was killed in order to save all of us. Literally though Jesus was crucified because he claimed to be king of the Jews and the son of god, the messiah. Claiming to be king of the Jews was seen as blasphemy and a threat to the Roman rulers. This upset the leaders of the time and led them to put Jesus on trial for making the claims that he did. He was eventually sentenced to crucifixtion. They even mocked Jesus as he walked to his death by giving him a crown of thorns and literally inscribing at the top of his cross king of the jews. For many believers in Jesus, this was a necessary part of his life because it “saved” all the people from sin and showed Jesus’ ultimate love for god and for what he believed. For others, this is a little too over the top to verify the existance of god. Therefore the non believers in Jesus do not believe that the Messiah has yet come to earth as god promised in the Old Testament.