Final Blog 15!

My SCORE experience overall was fun and helped me learn a lot. First off, I am not very good at taking criticism.  Not in that I don’t want to change my ways, but I think I get too emotional and caring about things when it’s not necessary and I should just focus on getting get the job  done.  Also, in the workforce you really can’t rely on other people, which we learned the hard way as a result of skate night.  I definitely over the course of the year learned a ton about human trafficking.  Now, when I see things on the news I listen up and don’t take them so lightly; terrible things like this happen close to home.  In the future, I would love to work for a nonprofit like Somaly Mam, but I really don’t think I would belong in the fundraising department; I want to be out there making a difference.  I obviously do not know what type of job I will obtain in the future but in 4 years if all goes well I should have obtained my Master’s Degree in Public Policy with my Bachelor’s in Political Science.  I hope to go on to law school after that and either work for the government or help run a nonprofit.  After doing my research paper, I think that if I were to work for a nongovernmental organization like Somaly Mam I would want it to have an education initiative, because people can only help themselves if they are educated enough to do so.

Blog 14

On the site we address the projects of the past, and the theme is laid out so that future students can easily transfer pages over to the “Past Projects” link and put the new project under “Current Project.”  Last year, the project was H2O for Life, so under the tab we wrote about the Class of 2012’s efforts:

Haiti is now the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and it still extremely affected by the earthquake in 2008. The biggest problem for the majority of Haitian people is the lack of sanitation and clean water. This in turn leads to massive breakouts of disease that can lead to the death of children. Saint Pierre School in Mirebalais, Haiti has an average of 2,000 students working in twenty classrooms and using four bathrooms, with no places to wash their hands. The school had no running water until Manchester Essex Global Issues class helped to change that.

H2O For life is a non-profit organization that builds water wells all around the world to give people access to clean water. Manchester Essex Regional High School was teamed up with H2O for Life who promised to match our goal of $6,500. The money we raised went to building and installing a water well for a school in Mirabalais, Haiti. This money allowed students at Saint Pierre School to have safe drinking water, improved sanitation, and education on hygiene.

We also have a section dedicated to past students who went on to work with humanitarian type things.  So, we featured Lindsay Rose who will be teaching children in Ghana for the summer, and Simon McIntosh who has been traveling the world working on green initiatives!

Blog 13

We came into class today frustrated about our event over the weekend.  Everybody was on edges, which just lead to conflicting ideas throughout the day.  Skate night was a complete failure.  Mother Nature didn’t really help us out on Saturday.  I can’t really blame people for not coming to skate on a 70 degree day because I didn’t really want to be there while all of my friends were beaching it, but since I was  I wish we made money.  It was very awkward being at the ice rink with just Nicole and the zamboni man.  He totally felt badly for us which made it even more uncomfortable.  Nicole and I did manage to sell baked goods to glittery girls leaving private skate lessons. 

Luckily, after exchanging a few checks of various amounts, the people at the rink decided not to charge us for the rental.  We really lucked out in this aspect because at least we weren’t losing money for the foundation.  They are mailing them back to my home address so I should have a check to void for Ms. Lumsden on the day of my presentation.  During my presentation I plan to reflect on what went wrong with this fundraiser and take the blame for my part in it.  I was extremely disappointed and embarrassed with the event, as was Nicole and we feel as though we have let the rest of the school and global issues community down by not reaching our goal.  Luckily we still have a few items to auction off within the school to hopefully make a couple hundred more dollars; bid away!

Blog 12

Next, we outlined in the Somaly Mam page the efforts that have been made this year by students to fundraise:

The 2012-2013 Global Issues class partnered with the Somaly Mam Foundation to fight against human trafficking. The class aimed to raise $15,000 which would rescue, rehabilitate, and reintegrate 5 young girls back into Cambodian society.  We also linked this page to the Somaly Mam Foundation site.

Restaurant Nights- The class hosted restaurant nights at various restaurants- Buffalo Wild Wings, Texas Roadhouse, and Giuseppe’s, all of which donated 10-20% of their profits to the cause if presented with a flyer. Cape Ann Pizza in Essex generously donated 100% of their profits on two occasions to the Gardner Project’s fundraising.

Dodgeball Tournaments- Two dodgeball tournaments were held afterschool for students by members of the Global Issues class. The cost per team to enter the tournament was $40, and participants had a chance to take on the defending champions who played in the tournament the year prior for H2O for Life.

Teacher Talent Show-The First Annual Teacher Talent Show was the Gardner Project’s biggest success. Teachers donated their time to perform for students and members of the community on their Friday night. The class profited $4,000 on ticket and refreshment sales, while spectators were entertained by faculty and staff members’ performances.

Other Fundraisers- Students sold raffle tickets to a Bruins game, for a car wash, for a staples gift card, and also sold ornaments to the elderly at the Holiday Luncheon for seniors. In addition, significant donations were given to the Gardner Project by community members. We thank all who helped us in our fundraising efforts throughout the year.

 

Blog 11

Here is the most recent content I have added to the site’s text:

This appears on the sidebar of the site: The Gardner Project is a student-run project focused on giving back to the global community. Manchester Essex Global Issues students participate in the Gardner Project annually, in partnership with a nongovernmental organization of their choice.

The About us section reads:

The Manchester-Essex Regional High School’s Global Issues class follows a curriculum that emphasizes current problems in the world. It contains units on Globalization, Human Rights, Human Trafficking, Promotion of Democracy, Population Growth, and Terrorism. Open discussion is key to the class, as it encourages students to face the emotions drawn forward by the material and critically think of a way to help solve the problem. The Gardner Project helps students apply information that is learned and search for a way to help those in need. Each year, the Gardner Project runs a student-lead fundraising assignment for a chosen nongovernmental organization (NGO). Students of the MERHS Global Issues Class research, present, and ultimately vote for, an NGO to raise money for that given year. The class then sets a monetary goal and organizes fundraisers in order to achieve the amount. One out of every five days is spent in class working on the Gardner Project, and additional work is done out of school to organize and run fundraising events.

It is important to no only relay to site users the issue and goal for the current year, but the fact that this is an ongoing project that students work on year in and year out with the help of Mr. Wallimann.

Blog 10

Despite Ms. Epp describing the Backstreet Wordpress theme to Nicole as “the Christmas present that seems perfect for someone but then is either way too expensive or has a crack or stain on it so you can’t buy it” and urging us not to show it to Wallimann for that very reason, we showed it to him.  And what do you know, he fell in love. So, I obviously forced Nicole to break the news to Ms. Epp that Backstreet was what we were going with.

She has been very helpful in showing us how to use Wordpress and getting things started theme-wise.  At this point, I am still in classes, therefore I work less hours than Nicole, so she is more focused on layout with me editing it when she is done, and I am more text and context focused.  I like the way the site  is coming out.  We recently added RSS feeds to the bottom where relevant news topics and links can be added each year based on the issue that the class is fighting against.  This year we have the New York Times on Human Rights, MEMO Coverage of Somaly Mam, the Somaly Mam site, and WorldBuzz (the debate site).  I think that this makes the site look pretty legit and professional, personally.  I am also in the process of creating new Twitter and Facebook pages for the Gardner Project which will be linked directly to the site via interactive icons.  Things are looking pretty good right now!

Blog 9

Like everything else, getting the e-mail out to the global issues kids was a real pain.  Seniors were never set up with an Aspen account, just their parents, so the only e-mails Mr. Wallimann has of students are those (like myself) who sneakily logged onto Aspen and changed the preferred e-mail to their own; I feel as though I can manage my own grades without my parents permanently in my business.  So, we went to Ms. Lumsden to get more e-mails but she has the same problem.  Next, we went to Ms. Lewis who has everybody’s e-mails but for whatever reason was unable to just give them to us to use.  She would have had to copy and paste the e-mail and send it out herself and we didn’t want to burden her with all of that work as it is always chaotic in the guidance department!

Nicole and I are also ferociously trying to create a website. I liked the theme we were using to lay it out, but it wasn’t completely user friendly.  Not to knock the MERSD site, but it was very similar to that in that people would have to click a lot of links just to get where they wanted to go.  So, it seems we are back to the drawing board theme-wise.  Nicole has one that she really likes called “Backstreet” that is like memo but black-and-white chic.  Ms. Epp has been very helpful in getting us started with the site, ans she said that it may be hard to work with, but we’ll see what happens!

Blog 8

We have still been discussing the car wash idea and I really think it could work! Some people still have dried salt on their cars from winter which is totally unacceptable. 

Nicole and I are responsible for rainsing about $2,500 to reach our goal with the skate night, so we are trying to get volunteers.  This e-mail is going to be sent out to global issues students:

Global Issues Students:

We need your help! As you know our goal as a class was to raise $15K for the Somaly Mam Foundation.  Currently, we have raised around $12,000.  SCORE Interns Nicole Brosch and Kelsi Field are planning a “Family Skate Night” fundraiser from 1-4pm on Sunday, May 18 in order to raise the remaining sum.  At the skate night a silent auction will be held.  So far here are the items we have:

-floating boat cooler

-Yamaha iPod speakers

-Hyatt Regency Boston accommodations for 2

-Who said they could get Red Sox tickets?

Right now, we are looking for a couple more big ticket items for the silent auction part of the fundraiser.  Also, we will be holding a bake sale, so we need volunteers to bake goodies for that day.  Lastly, we will need a few people to actually work at the fundraiser itself (selling tickets, watching silent auction items, and selling baked goods).  Please let us know if you would be willing to help out at any capacity (thekels@comcast.net or broschnicole@gmail.com)! And remember, it’s for sex slaves.

Thank you!

 

 

Blog 7

The Cape Ann Pizza night did not go as well as we had hoped.  There was apparently confusion between us and Cape Ann Pizza owners about whether or not flyers needed to be presented in order for the profits to be donated.  We were told that flyers would not be necessary when in fact they wanted them to be presented at the time of purchase.  All of the flyers we posted around both Manchester and essex said not to worry about bringing flyers so that may have hurt us.  I guess this was a learning experience for me to not take someone else’s word for something; I should have driven down to Cape Ann and found out what the scoop was.  Neverthless, we made $400 that night, which is $400 than we started with. 

We had been thinking about doing a car wash but decided against it.  Now that we didn’t make as much as we had banked on for Cape Ann, I am wishing that we could have planned one. We had tossed around the idea of doing one at the school, maybe like when there is youth soccer going on so that we could place flyers on the cars of parents telling them to drive to the upper lot for a donations only car wash.  I think that not having a set price and doing donations only for something like that is better because if there is a price people expect you to give them change with larger bills, whereas more could be donated by those people otherwise.

15

During my five week internship at The Colbent Corporation, I have managed to learn several things.  I have gotten to sit in on conference calls, I have gotten to help take part in a 33,000 piece mailing job as well as very many other small mailing jobs, I have gotten to know some of the employees and learn about what they do, and I have gotten to learn more about what the company actually does.  Not only that but I have learned how to drive in traffic; I always thought it would be the same as driving normally, but I was very wrong.  Sitting in traffic for four hours a day, two hours down, two hours back, really opens your eyes and lets you see how many bad drivers there are in the world.  The driving is the main reason why I would never continue to work at The Colbent Corporation.  I loved doing the work and learning about the business but the drive is brutal.  It is not that far of a drive but there is always so much going on down on Rout One and with the Tobin Bridge that it is not even worth working in the City or south of the City.  Besides the drive I had a great experience working for The Colbent Corporation, and maybe if I live down that way someday I could continue working with them, as well as the other two companies I had helped out over the five weeks I was there.  

14

 My favorite day of working down at The Colbent Corporation was the day that I had to get my fingerprints taken down at the Braintree police station.  I know that is not something that sounds like it would be all that much fun, but it was to me.  I loved every second of it.  I loved it so much because it made me feel like I was important, and that I was going to be handling a bunch of important documents.  It was also a fun day because I washed my hands in a holding cell instead of in a bathroom because I got lost in the station on my way to find the bathroom.  One of the other days that I truly enjoyed was the day that I got to help with the 33,000 piece-mailing job.  That also doesn’t sound like fun, and it really was not all that fun at the time, but for some reason now looking back on it I really enjoyed doing it.  All I had to do was sit there at a printer and keep feeding it envelopes while Mike put the already printed envelopes in the stuffing machine.  So we both did not have to do much, but we both really enjoyed doing this because again it made us feel like we were contributing and helping out The Colbent Corporation with a very important task.  But in reality we were not doing all that much, 33,000 is no where near the biggest mailing job they have had so we were really just helping them with an average job.  But that is all right with me because I truly enjoyed it.  

13

The last day that I was at The Colbent Corporation was the day that the big mailing job was to take place.  On that day Paul Beardsley, my cousin, realized that they did not have the correct size mailing trays or covers.  This did not seem to be a big problem in my eyes but to him, this would ruin the entire project.  Because Mike and I were the interns it was our job to fix the problem.  We called the Braintree Post Office to see if they had any of the EMM mailing trays.  Fortunately for us they had about three hundred and fifty of them, and we needed about three hundred so we were in luck.  They also had the same amount of covers so that was even better.  We drove down to the post office and began our new adventure.  We did not get lost on the way to the post office, shocking I know, but we had a problem once we got there.  We were in my car, a Toyota 4Runner, not a truck; so we could not just put the entire pallet in the car, we had to find a way to squeeze about ninety five of the EMM trays in each trip.  We took four trips to get all of the trays and only one trip for the covers.  The covers were very thin so we could fit a ton of them in the car.  We filled the car so high with covers that on the ride home when I hit the breaks they would fly up over our seats and hit us in the back of the head.  Once we got back Paul was very thankful and the job was completed on time.  

12

One of the first days of work at The Colbent Corporation I was assigned the task to remove several desks and chairs.  These were no ordinary desks, they weighed about 500 pounds each, the desks that is.  So to begin this task we had to drive all the way home to get Mike’s truck, and then we had to drive all the way back.  Once we were finally back we began.  We had to move the desks from the back room in the warehouse.  The same back room that we had to move all of the boxes into for the people up stairs.  Finally once all of the boxes were in the warehouse instead of the room we began to have problems.  We had to move them about one hundred feet to a loading dock.  Then from the loading dock we had to drop them into Mike’s truck, which was about three feet lower than ground level of the loading dock.  This only caused us a problem for about ten minutes, and being the smart kids that we are we decided it would be best to get a pallet jack, a device made to move thousands of pounds of boxes on pallets, and put three desks on at a time.  This started out a great idea because it made them much easier to move more quickly.  The only problem was they could not fit through the door to get them out to the loading dock.  So after another ten minutes of working out how we could do this, we decided we would just slide them from there, and then slide them off the edge into his truck.  This was loud and obnoxious but the only way possible.  This was a day were we didn’t do much business but we did learn how to move a bunch of heavy things.   

11

Another job I was sent to do was to try and remove some of the broken pallets from the warehouse.  I was given the task to do some research and find where there is somewhere where I can leave pallets in bulk, or possible sell them.  After about an hour of doing some research I finally found one place around here that would buy pallets.  Everywhere else could only take at most five at a time, but this place could pay for them in bulk.  So finally after a couple more days of organizing the pallets and finding all of the useless spare pallets we finally decided it was time to take them down to this place.  I can not remember what the place is called, all I can remember is that it was in Chelsea and had a large neon yellow sign that said “WE BUY PALLETS”.  We loaded up mikes truck with about twenty four pallets and went on our way.  We put the directions into our GPS and were praying that we would make it there with no problems.  It took us around an hour to get from Braintree to Chelsea because of the traffic and construction on the Tobin Bridge.  But once there I can safely say this was the creepiest place I have ever been in my entire life.  After walking in and around the building for about twenty minutes looking for the two guys Ernie and Hector we decided to leave and just bring the pallets back home.  Later that night I found out that right around the corner that is where my grandfather had lived growing up, and my grandfather was the man who started the company that I am working for now, so I thought that was a funny coincidence.  

10

Back to one of my first blogs, when I had to go to Westborough to help Bob move his computer equipment, we had the same type of equipment back at Colbent that had to be moved to an office building in Quincy.  So that Monday we took Mike’s truck down to Braintree because my car would not have been able to fit all of the computer equipment in the trunk.  So finally we get to Braintree and move the two pallets full of computer stuff over to the loading dock and begin to load them into mikes truck.  We did not realize how heavy these computer things actually were until we had to lower them down from the loading dock into his truck.  Each box of what ever it was that was in the box weight somewhere between two and three hundred pounds, so it was a struggle to move all of them.  Finally we did manage to get each box into the truck, it wasn’t very graceful but we somehow managed to do it.  After that we had to drive to Quincy and find where Tracy’s office was.  As I am sure you could have guessed we got lost and drove around for about a half hour before we found it.  Once there we unloaded the boxes and left.  Unfortunately for us we left one of our dollies there because boxes were still on in, so that would be a task for another day to go and retrieve it.