Park Clean-a-thon

Taking a break from picking up trash to take a picture in
a gazebo at Brengle Terrace Park.

PARK CLEAN-A-THON!!! This is a really exciting event for IB CAS because it is an event we planned and organized ourselves during our Friday CAS meetings at lunch. It doubles as a park clean up and a fundraiser for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) because people could sponsor us a flat rate to clean up the park and those funds go to the WWF to support their wildlife conservation efforts.
We have put forth an effort to improve our community by participating in beautification of Brengle Terrace Vista community park. This beautification came through picking up trash throughout the park. We all met on Saturday morning in the parking lot to organize into groups to disperse around the park and pick up trash. My group was myself, my boyfriend Anthony, and my brother Jake and we made a pretty amazing clean up team. We started by making our way up a hill, bushwhacking through brush and bushes collecting trash as we went. Then we made our way across a large grass slope to another brush area of slope where we walked the nature walk hiking trails and picked up as much trash as we could. We came across a hobo hut, and other areas with a lot of trash so we had to return to get a new trash bag. We made our way eventually to the Alta Vista Gardens and took a picture in the gazebo there. Some of the most common trash items we picked up were a lot of broken glass, wrappers, pieces pf paper, food packaging, and other miscellaneous items. 

Jake and Anthony picking up trash.

At the end of the 3 hour clean up, I think that our small three person group picked up the most trash, returning with one and a half large, black trash bags full of trash and probably walking 2 miles around the park. I think that it was really a learning experience for me because it opened up my eyes to the amount of trash in our parks and the disrespect that many people treat our community parks with. I didn't realize the amount of trash that was in our parks until I was looking for it and then as I picked it up I though that people should do this more often, because there was a lot of it. I am very glad that I participated in this clean-up event  because I feel that i had an  active role in community beautification and make the park safer for not just the wildlife by improving the habitat but for people as well. The amount of broken glass that we picked up could have composed a dozen large glass bottles and I felt that was dangerous for the wildlife, pets and the people enjoying the park. So a note of importance, keep everyone safe by cleaning up local parks and recreational areas.
I would enjoy doing another park clean up so at the next meeting for IB CAS I will bring up the project and maybe another organization to support.
Learn more about the work that the World Wildlife Fund does at this link. : http://worldwildlife.org/
Three hours of Service.

Making Holiday Cards for the Troops :)

A picture of some of the snowflakes that I created. 

As the holiday season is approaching, a tradition in Character Leaders is to make holiday cards for the men and women serving our country. The cards we make are sent to veteran hospitals, bases, or even overseas to bring holiday cheer to those who sacrifice their lives every day to protect our freedoms in the United States. It is the least that we can do to show our appreciation. The first after school card making day was today after school. We had paper, markers and other simple craft making supplies. I saw that some people had cut out papers in the shape of things to glue to the front of the card. I had the idea of creating snowflakes so other people could glue them to the front of their cards fro decoration. Making cut out snowflakes is something that I have been doing for years around the holiday season and this was certainly a skill that I could contribute to the card making effort. Just like people, every snowflake is different and I think that is part of the beauty of making snowflakes, the connection to human life in that sense. I spent one hour after school making cut out snowflakes and giving them to other card makers to glue to the front of their holiday cards.
One hour of creativity.

To make paper snowflakes:

1. Use either a square or circle piece of paper. You need scissors.
2. For a square piece of paper, fold the paper into a triangle and continue folding until the desired size is met. For a circle, continue folding in half until desired size is met. 
3. Cut small shapes out of the sides of the triangle. Remember that everything you cut is only half of the design that will come out on the unfolded snowflake. An example: to create a heart, cut a half of a heart into the side of the triangle.
4. Carefully unfold and enjoy! :)

Volunteerism

Vista Viking Festival- Got Lefse?

This weekend in Vista, California was the Vista Viking Festival, a celebration of culture and tradition of Scandinavian countries. My brother is enamored with Norway, he absolutely loves everything about it and speaks Norwegian and its pretty great! He is really involved with the Sons of Norway hall in Vista and hence, through him, I am involved as well. We learned to make lefse last year at one of the lefse making days at the Sons of Norway hall in preparation for the lefse and lutefisk dinner. Lefse is described as a potato and flour based tortilla essentially, and the process in making them is very specific. Once we learned how to make lefse, my brother and I make it at home and I even brought it to my Theory of Knowlegde once for TOK Cafe.
So anyways, back to the Vista Viking Festival. It is a huge festival hosted at the Sons of Norway Hall and Norwegian Fish Club in Vista. They always need volunteers there and this year my brother and I signed up to make lefse. I had a great time making lefse, i always enjoy it. First you must make the potato mix, then you add 2 parts potato mix, one part flour and form them into balls slightly larger then golf balls. Then you roll out the balls into round, flat pieces, about 10 inches in diameter. Using a lefse stick, transfer the uncooked lefse to a hot griddle and cook. Flip the lefse using a lefse stick, a long, thin piece of wood with a handle in it used to flip the lefse. Finally, spread butter on the cooked lefse and sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar and enjoy an amazing lefse. :)
3 hours of creativity

Coming soon...

The summer is beginning to wind down, I cant believe that school will start in less than a month! But back to school means a return to the wonderful character leaders class that is now 200+ people strong for positive change in our community and on campus. New community service opportunities will be coming up within the next few months for all of us and of course they will be showing up in this blog, so keep posted!
Coming up for sure will be more on the Knitting for Babies project as it starts up again during the school year. Not only are we knitting for a cause, but knitting can be really stress relieving on a late night of endless homework.
There will probably be some posts about human rights as I continue my 15 page IB Extended Essay on the topic of international human rights. A good linking question is: How can we use the skills we have to volunteer and support the advancement of human rights globally?
I am open to suggestions for new volunteering opportunities! Just comment below with your ideas :)
And finally, good luck to all the Olympic athletes out there representing their countries. Just remember, character counts, everywhere and all the time.

Volunteer Day 5: June 22nd, 2012- Last Day

Painting tires in my Stanford shirt at the elementary school

Hugging one of the girls goodbye, I might just cry!

8am: We load into the bus to drive to the school. It is a relatively quiet and somber 5 minute drive because we know that today will be our last day at the school helping and being with the kids. I was staring out the window the entire time trying to take in as much as I could and firmly record it to my memory. I was thinking about how to tell the kids that I had become so attached to that today was the last day and that we would probably never see them again. It was very sad to think about.. Today's work was pretty straightforward, we were painting the tires that we had scrubbed yesterday white so the next group of volunteers could come in and paint them colorful again. We broke up into groups of who would be painting in the chicken coop and who would be painting in the kindergarten area, and I chose to be in the Kindergarten area for painting tires. We had finished about 2 tires when the bell rang for the kid's recess at about 8:30 am. The kids found us painting and asked us to play... caballos! So of course we dropped our paintbrushes and went to play with them. We brought them back down to their main play area via piggy-back ride (caballos) and played soccer and caballos and took more pictures and it was a lot of fun as usual. The kids wanted to run around and take more pictures but it was to the point where it was getting so hot and we were really sweaty so we had to politely decline. The weather has grown progressively hotter as we have been here over the past week. It even rained today for about 20 minutes during lunch time. It was at this time during recess that the kids found out that today was our last day at their school and that we would be returning home soon. I told the girl that I had become very close with, and I was really sad. I said: "Estoy trieste" then she said "Porque Sarah?" and then I said "Porqe hoy es el finalmente dia que nosotros estamos aqui. Necesito a regresar a los EstadosUnidos en tres dias." And then she got kinda sad too and hugged me and said "Te amo Sarah" and at that point I got pretty sad and almost began to cry. One of the other volunteers got a picture of us hugging and it looks like i am about to cry!! These children have opened up their hearts to us volunteers over the course of 5 days and were willing to share things with us and be nice to us and I think that society in general could learn how to show more compassion from these amazing children. After the kids recess, some of them began to leave on a bus back to central Orosi, and we made sure to say goodbye to them before they left. We quickly finished painting tires and then went into their English classroom to help out the children with their English pronunciation and spelling. The teacher was giving the children worksheets and we were helping them learn the parts of the house like kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, etc. After the children had completed the worksheet, the teacher let the children color the worksheet and we helped them color in their worksheet as well. Today at recess, some of the kids ran up to me and gave me some of the cute notes, it was pretty adorable. Getting the notes from the children really reinforce that face that I am making a difference in someone's life by being there volunteering. I also braided a lot of hair while I was there too, I braided french braids, normal braids, fishtail braids, you name it, I was braiding it! While I was braiding hair, one of the girls ran in to tell me that she had lost her tooth out on the playground and she showed me her lost tooth. I t was pretty cute that she ran in to tell me that she had lost her tooth. That was the second lost tooth on the playground that day, a boy had lost his tooth earlier, and he wiped off the blood and just kept playing soccer. It was pretty adorable that they love the sport that much at such a young age. After the school day had ended for the little kids, a lot of them began to leave in buses or their parents came and picked them up, the girl i was really close to was leaving and we said goodbye one last time and she walked away and looked back at me through the chain link fence and I looked back at her with tears welled up in my eyes. One of the other volunteers asked if I was okay and I said yes, that I was fine, just kinds sad. As I turned around I saw another volunteer bawling her eyes out as she said goodbye to some of the kids, and seeing her cry didn't help my sad mood that day at all. Some of the older kids began to show up for school and we asked to stay fifteen minutes longer to say goodbye to them. We went down to the field and played one last game of soccer with the kids before going back up to the kitchen to say goodbye to the kitchen staff and some of the teachers. Then we said goodbye to the principal who wished us all a safe journey home. I have learned so much on my experience to Costa Rica. I learned a lot about the culture there, the people, rituals, foods, and traditions. I learned a lot about the beautiful land and I got to sight see in many beautiful places. I am so lucky I got the opportunity to embark on such an amazing international journey at such a young age and I am really appreciative of those who helped to to succeed in making it on the trip. But most of all, I am so glad that I got the opportunity to help others in a foreign country and it has truly changed my life.
4 hours of  IB CAS service.

Volunteer Day 4: Thursday June 21, 2012

8am: We arrive at the school today and the kids do not have school today so we get right down to our work. We are told that today all the teachers from the nearby schools are meeting at the school we are working at to have a large faculty meeting. The first thing we do is go up to the kitchen and help out by setting the tables before the teachers arrive with cups, silverware and napkins. Once all of the teachers arrive, we hand them their breakfast plates with the tamales we made yesterday on them. We also serve them coffee in the school's set of tea cups. All of the volunteers went outside and took a break while the teachers ate and talked and then we went back inside to slear the tables for the kitchen staff and the teachers. Myself and some other volunteers sorted the plates and utensiles into stacks for washing; big plates, little plates, cups, silverware, tamale sleeves, trash, and plastics all had to be sorted out as a part of the clean up process. Once all the things were sorted out, myself annd four other volunteers took up sponges and washed and dried all the dishes from the breakfast. This was no easy task considering that there were about 25 teachers in attendence at the meeting. From this experience I learned that if you get a good system going, then any job can be very simple! I also came to really appreciate the kitchen staff for all their hard work that they put in, not just at the school in Costa Rica, but anyone in general. Once you put yourself in someone else's shoes, it is alot easier to see life through their scope and to appreciate what they do. After we swiftly did the dishes, we went outside to take a short break before continuing with work in the kitchen. We next rolled silverware for the next meal, we put a fork, knife and spoon together and wrapped it in a napkin to create utensil bundles. After completing this task, we went outside to paint rocks that lined the pavement and paths and I went back later and touched up the rocks with more of the runny white paint that we were using. We then had a job in the place that I have been avoiding most.. the chicken coop! We scrubbed all of the mud off the painted tires in the chicken coop with rough scrub brushes and water so you could see the bright colors again. The tires looked at first dull and dirty but as we scrubbed them up and we realized how bright all of the colors were! There were tires that were blue, peach, navy, sea foam green, yellow, brown and purple. It was rewarding to see the product of our hard work in the form of school beautification. Meanwhile, there are about 20 chickens and 1 rooster running around the coop so it got pretty hectic at times! The rooster strutted around the coop trying to protect the hens while we scrubbed tires, it was pretty comical! After we completed our work, we walked around and made sure that nobody else needed help with any other painting or scrubbing work, then we left early at around 11am. 
4 hours service, Creativity and Action.