numbers...numbers...numbers?! (・。・;)

Week three has by far been the most difficult one so far. We're were supposed to probably have narrowed down our choices for the organizations we wanted to help, but since they all seem to be a good one to donate to it is hard to choose the top ones. Many of the other teams have at least 3-5 organizations that they want to help out while we have 5-8 still. However, Mr. Ponsford taught the class about taxes and how they can help us look at organizations and look whether they are prospering or whether they are not doing so great. Taxes have a really interesting story that I don't want to talk about because I'm a bit clueless about it myself. All I can say is that by figuring out the income tax of each organization, it becomes much easier to decide about helping them or not. In the end I learned that it is crucial to look at the numbers before investing on something because that will show you if it's something worth investing in or if you'll just end up spending your money on something that doesn't show any signs of success.

   Anyways, back to talking about Children and Youth Services. During week three I learned some interesting facts about my cause that I didn't know.
For example, did you guys know that
     There are about 542,000 foster care children in the United States; 126,000 of them are waiting to be adopted.

That's only 23% of the kids being adopted while the other 77% wait and wait hoping to someday find a lovely couple who will adopt them and make them part of their family.

That ratio makes me feel sad because all children should be able to have a home and have a family that loves them and gives them care and protection.  What if i adopt a kid when I grow up? *starting to think*


 We also started another interesting project today called the Social Innovation Relay. This project is about to come up with something that will have a positive impact on society and the world. This also relates a lot to the Main Street Philanthropy because you're trying to make a difference in the community and may be the world as well. We were placed on the same groups as we are now; however, I hoped to have formed a separate team so it doesn't confuse us and makes us get lost. While they showed a video of people in Africa using bottles filled with water to use as light bulbs which was an amazing idea, my mind started thinking of ideas. One of them was a water filter that would purify the water in places where they don't have access to clean water; however, the filter also worked as a generator which provided electricity to the people in low resouces areas where they don't have access to electricity. I'm not sure if there are inventions like that, well besides the dams, but if there are not then it would be good to try to use that idea in Africa where most of the people have a difficult time accessing clean water and electricity.

    I am now looking forward to week 4 of MSP to see what new things I can learn and work with my team to see how we will help organizations supporting our cause! 
 

'The brown paper bag of life...(≧∇≦)

Main Street Philanthropy week DOS!

This week seems to be my favorite so far.
          Why? The brown paper bag activity. On week one we were given a random, normal brown paper bag and we were told to bring three things that had meaning to you.
It was challenging to find the three things that were the most important to me due to the fact that I value a lot of things. So my final three choices were:
1) Phone and earphones.(Music)
I simply value music a lot. Music helps me relax and focus on what I'm doing and improves my work. Music also impacts my mood and helps me feel better when I'm going through a tough situation. If I were to describe how I feel while listening to music then I would say that once I put my earphones in, I go into another world, somewhere really calm and peaceful. 

2)USB Drive
-Some people might think that putting value into a USB drive is pointless and they might make fun of you sometimes.A lot of people make fun of me because they know that I love my two USB drives and protect them even more than my own phone. What they don't know is that deep within the space that is being used, there are many important pictures, documents and other things. In there I have lots of family pictures, and pictures of interesting things that I have seen and enjoyed. I also music stored in there so I can access it anywhere from a computer. I currently own three of them, but I only carry two of them because the third one holds all the pictures and important files I have.

3) Mom's picture of Jesus Christ
After family, this is my second MOST valuable thing i love. My mom told my sister and I a story about how she cut this picture from a calendar and put it on a frame. Ever since, she carries this picture everywhere she goes and never leaves without it when she travels. What made me start valuing it was that my mom has been taking care of this picture for over 20 years and she will not allow anyone to touch it because it is her most valuable possession. Every time my mom went through a hard time, she said that the only thing that kept her from giving up was the picture on the frame of Jesus Christ.



This week we were also put into groups with other students that shared the same common cause they wanted to help after they chose the three causes they cared about the most from the MAD cards activity on week one. While sharing our things from the bag, I learned a lot about my teammates. Someone from my group also valued family which was really cool, some others valued religion, animals, and some even valued energy drinks which most people would think of that as a waste of time.

Week two also was a bit challenging because after we got on our groups and come up with a purpose, vision and mission statement. At first it seemed fairly easy; however, once we tried working on it it became more difficult to complete. In the end, after the difficulties we faced we managed to finish it.
   In addition, we also were told to start researching organizations that we would want to help and list the names of the companies that we thought could be good. Our team already started planning on contacting some organizations and one of our members has someone that could get a guest speaker for our class and talk about out topic which is Children and Youth Services, but more specifically about foster care.

I am excited about week three and all the new things we will learn and also to start making a plan to help an organization, or more if we're able to.

While looking for foster care organizations, I found this video which really got to me and made my heart want to help as much as possible and think about someday becoming a foster parent and provide a safe home and give them all the attention and love they need.

The Journey Begins...HERE! （⌒▽⌒）

Main Street philanthropy...

On Tuesday, March 5, 2013, someone walked into our Business Management and Ownership class. He introduced himself as Ryan Ponsford. He announced that we were about start a project that we would work on once a week for a few weeks. As he talked about Main Street Philanthropy I became more interested in knowing more about it and take part of this opportunity. Since I am a person who likes helping others and sometimes even before I help myself, I knew this would be a great thing to do and it would change someone's life.

He said something like " would you rather keep $25.00 or donate $250.00?" which made everyone most people go "WHOA! That's Awesome!"

In a later activity with a set of 20 cards called the M.A.D cards. We had to choose 10 cards out of the 20 which all contained different topics like arts, culture, Children and Youth services, etc. After choosing 10, we had to narrow the choices down to 6 and then to three which became harder to do each time. In the end I picked my top three choices which were:

1. Children and Youth Services.
2. Animal Care
3. Disaster Relief

I have a special reason why I chose these three topics and I'll share on my next blogs.. who knows.

I'm excited to see what new things we learn this week on Thursday March 14.

See you all and consider helping others. (^~^)