You Should "Bag It"

TO MAKE UP FOR YESTERDAY AND TODAY:

Yesterday we worked with the kids at the Atlanta Children's Shelter. This shelter has been given the prominant NAC Award for their work. They take approximately 25 families through a strict program to aid them in becoming self sufficient. Since 90% of the program's funding is from private donations, the shelter has flexibility in how they use their resources. Although not all parents are able to complete the program, the shelter is more than welcoming for those that may return. Some of the chidren's behaviors showed us the possible hardships they may face when they leave the shelter while others showed immense love and vibrance that represented their resilience.

At our reflection, we shared one expectation and one concern with the group. One of the concerns was that 5 days was not long enough to make a significant chain of long term effects. We brainstormed the ways our service can ignite a greater impact. One participant suggested that we donate all the blankets we bought from Walgreens (amongst many other treasures: Fun factoid #2: Smooth Away actually works but will leave your skin a bit irritated) to the shelter. We noticed at our time there that not all children had blankets during nap time.

...and just for a comedic break, when the children would not eat their food, the teacher exclaimed "Barack Obama wants you to eat your hot dog," and the food was immediately scarfed.

[We also went to CNN Studios, Coke Factory, and the Underground for dinner.]


TODAY:

THE TV LOVE US. We went to the Atlanta Community Food Bank's Product Rescue Center and to be frank, HAD A BLAST. We packed cans, danced around, and fell in love with the employees.

CNN came in with cameras and followed us as we worked for their episode on how the economic downturn has affected the food shortage. Lindy, from the Food Bank, was also nice enough to give us a presentation on hunger, its causes and consequences. We broke up into groups and made some awesome houses using construction paper, markers and tape.

Point of this game, you ask?

To represent the unequal distribution of food in our country. The problem is not that there isn't enough food to go around, but not everyone has access to this food. We learned about how the group most affected by hunger is the working class, but the homeless and children make up 14% each. We learned about how families have to make sacrifices when they cannot make ends meet.

We went to MLK park in the afternoon and enjoyed the lovely weather (for a change.)

Kiss your brain!
Haomin and Kristin