Choosing to Participate:
A Social Justice Service Project on Sustainability

I thought that today went pretty well, the workshop seemed to go very fast. At first I wasn’t sure if people were going to sign up for Make Trees Save the Planet. But a lot of people did and most of them seemed involved in making cut out of trees from the magazine. I thought that today really gave everyone in the school a chance to realize how important it is to be more sustainable. I think that because of the Day of Learning today more and more people in the school will try to reuse more things and not waste as much. I thought that the day of learning was a good way to wrap what everyone in the 8th grade learned throughout these three months working in our sustainability groups. I think that this project should continue next year and the following year after. I think that by allowing students to teacher other students about what we think is important really says a lot. I think that its interesting to listen and learn from kids around our age for a change. Today was an overall fun learning experience for many people. I enjoyed running the workshop with Brianna and Sasha. 

Brianna and I met with Rene at the school at 8:30am; she then took us to her work on 42nd street. We all arrived at her work on the 26th floor in her building at 9am. She was telling us how the work hours at her work are from 9am-5pm and that 4 people work in this part of the office they are known as the support members. We went the conference room and we talked about what people in her building do. She was telling us about how there are 59 community boards and 10 community boards in Manhattan and how each community board has about 50 people. And how the requirement is that you live in the area in order to be a member of the community that’s on the board. Rene was telling us how she does more then just organizes meetings to give people awareness of what’s happening in the area. She was telling us that sometimes people ask if they can do something and they are the people that have connections and that can ask several people if they can get the thing that they want passed. They reinforce the decisions that are made with other clients and have some say into what goes on in the community but not total say. Everything that they are planning to do they talk about in several different ways to get people aware. They post information on their website and they send out flyers to people in the community. The type of office that Rene works at is always open to anyone and there is no need to call or schedule an appointment ahead of time as long as you come on their open hours then they will listen to what you have to say. And if you want to tell them something but it’s not during their store hours then you can always email one of the four people that organize certain events and meeting in the office. Even though there are 4 main people either don’t always give their opinions. They mostly just look over what’s going on. The idea is to motivate the idea that people in the community want done. Sometimes it doesn’t always work out and the reason for that is sometime the law of NYC is what stops them or at the same times the thing that they argue about. During the time that we were in the meeting room with Rene we also met her boss named Bob at about 9:30. He was listening in on what we were discussing. Rene asked both Brianna and I what we were exactly doing in school and how they could help and if we had any ideas of what we could do during the time that we spent with her. We told her that we were in the process of working towards making our school more aware about being green so the whole project was to meet with a sustainability group around once a week and help out the environment by doing anything possible to help spread awareness and get active and do something in our community. Once we told Rene what we were doing she gave us some ideas that we could help and that it would still count towards our credit for the school project. She told us about the million-tree plan that mayor Bloomberg had. Which was to eventually get more trees all over the state of New York so that our streets could be greener. Rene said that Brianna and I could maybe help survey and figure out where we wanted the trees exactly keeping in mind the New York regulations that come with that. Rene was also suggesting that we could help even plant the trees with the other people involved with this project. Brianna and I both agreed that these were both perfect ideas and that we would be willing to do each of the thing she had suggested that we could do. She was delighted and couldn’t wait till we met up again to start it. After we discussed all of that it was about time to leave so we left the office with Rene at about 10ish and went back on the subway and back to the school. After that meeting I really felt like I now have a much better understanding about how this group can be a sustainability group. I felt good that we discussed it and began to think about ways of how we could get active. It was really good for me and I was happy that I went to that meeting. I thought it was boring at times but then remembered that eventually it would be helping out the environment so I felt better and more awake. Knowing that I would be helping out.
-Amy

Henry, Ella, Maya, Amy, Lilly, Cameron, Aliza, Emma, Maya P.H. and I met in the art room at 12:00, for the door project. We sat down and discussed whether or not we had to still work on sketches or not. Most of the group said they still had to finish up their sketch or start it. We were given a choice to work on our section of the door with a partner or by ourselves. I decided to work with Gaia. Gaia and I got a piece of paper and pencil and sketched out our design. We decided that we were going to draw flowers and write words. Once we had the sketch down we got some color pencils and filled that in so that we could get a sense of what colors we wanted to use to paint on the door. We decided that we were going to add an inspiring quote. We did and then drew around that and had the idea that maybe the words could be shaped in a certain form to make it more appealing. I felt that so far I didn’t do much, I don’t feel like I really helped out. But I think that once we get to sketch our design on the door, I will feel like I helped out. It took me a while to realize that at first I wasn’t going to get to start painting right away. The process now I realize is a lot longer than I would imagine. I just wonder if we are going to do more than one door or not.
-Amy

Today, Ella, Brianna, Amy, Lilly, Cameron, Jack G, Henry, Emma, Maya PH, Aliza, and I met during recess to learn about a sustainability project that we will be starting soon. This project is a City Arts Project that will be directed by Paul, an Indian from New Orleans. We will be painting a door that will be given to New Orleans that has messages of hope on it. We will also be including some drawings about the earth. I think I did well by listening to what Paul and the director of City Arts had to say about this new project. We didn’t do too much except learn about the history of the arts in New Orleans, and watch a short video of some Mardi Gras dances, and other New Orleans celebrations, but we also had a few minutes at the very end to come up with a drawing of what we might like to paint on the door. I felt very proud of what I came up with, although it is still a work in progress, and I only had three or four minutes to come up with an idea. I hope that the more we have to get together and come up with ideas, the more I can get into this project. I was surprised by how much of our music and arts, comes from New Orleans. I’m not sure what life would be like without Louis Armstrong’s music, or the Mardi Gras celebrations! I was interested in what other City Arts sustainability projects were being planned, I think that art is one of the best ways to get something across, especially if kids are the ones doing it, because I think people are amazed by what such young people can accomplish. I hope that for the next session I will be able to finish my idea for the door’s design. I enjoyed the first session, especially since I love art, and I can’t wait until the next one if I decide to continue this project.-Amy 

Brianna and I both got in contact with people from city parks, both over the phone and through email checking to see what time we could meet them. We contacted Anne Frederick, Mike Mc Queen, and Sarah Erinsin. The whole process was different then what I was used to. A formal phone call was so weird compared to when I call my friends up on the telephone. I didn’t feel like I was helping out anyone yet because I didn’t do anything. It annoyed me when the place where they wanted us to meet them at was too far away for us to go so we didn’t end up going but we thanked them all for contacting us back and we said it just wasn’t going to work with our schedules.-Amy 

Ella, Calen, Maya P., Manny, Niles and I went to the Center For Architecture Foundation and helped sep up at 10 am. When families arrived we gave them nametags and got them ready for the newspaper challenge. The newspaper challenge was where you were given only one newspaper and you had to take it and try to make the tallest building possibly with the newspaper, and the tape you were given to build with. You only had two minutes to complete your design and then about 10 minutes to build your structure. While the families were busy making their structure we walked around and asked what their design and plan was to win the contest. If they needed any more tape to help them build with. When the 10 minutes was up everyone brought their design to the front of the room. It gave people a chance to really see what different people had made and see who’s was the tallest. After it was time for Grace (the coordinator) to measure all of the structures and find a winner, she said it was a close call and that everyone did a great job. Grace then showed everyone a PowerPoint of some structures by artists in China. We got a chance to see the amazing art of the buildings in China. For me, I thought it was a great thing to experience, because I know that on my free time I never look up buildings in China and I had no idea what they were like until that day when I saw that impressive PowerPoint. Behind the buildings you could see some of the scenery and make it seem that you were there in that photo. I thought it was moving to watch, seeing some of the buildings in China where I was born. Their structures are so different then they are in New York City. A lot of the buildings I saw in the PowerPoint seemed unreal, in the sense that the buildings were so fancy and astonishing to look at. Some buildings looked as if they were wavy while others were straight but still had an interesting flare added on to it. Each building seemed to bring more. Part of the time while watching the PowerPoint Ella and I cut 10 feet of wire a bunch of times and then rolled it up into circles. Once the PowerPoint was done and people had a sense of what they could do, they drew up a plan for the next building they needed to design. We then distributed one Styrofoam board and 10 feet of wire to each family. Once every family had what they needed they started to build their structure. This time if they needed any more material they were allowed to take it. Extra materials; tape, scissors, glue, tissue paper. We walked around one more time making sure everyone had what they needed and how they were coming along with the challenge. Once everyone was done within 15 minutes the families all shared what they did differently this time along. What their plan was and how the whole process went for them. When it was around noon we helped clean up and set up for the next group coming later in the afternoon that day. By 12:30 we were completely done for that day. After that was over I felt very good and that I helped out and felt very pleased and it was something that I enjoyed doing the whole time. Helping the little kids out was something that I will cherish. That was a day to remember.-Amy

Brianna and I helped Sasha after school raise money for her organization for Battle Against Malaria. I was the in the lobby for about an hour helping her sell baked goods, when we realized that no one was really buying we decided to go outside and see if the general public would like to buy any baked goods from her to help out her organization. What struck me about the bake sale was that when we first said that there was a bake sale downstairs and that they should come downstairs and buy something the children said sure. I realized that the grown ups said maybe. But then when we said that it was for a cause and it was for the organization Madness Against Malaria they said they were willing. I think that the reason they had changed their mind and were willing to come is because they were glad that there money was helping people instead of going into our own pockets for us to spend on stuff that we don’t even need. Even though I wasn’t apart of the baking process I was still glad and felt that I helped out for the cause. Before when Sasha just mentioned to me that I should help her out with her organization I was debating whether or not to do it and then when I started doing it I was happy because I was helping out a cause.

-Amy

Henry, Ella, Maya, Amy, Lilly, Cameron, Aliza, Emma, Maya P.H. and I went to the first meeting of the city arts project. There were two representatives there, one was an old inhabitant of New Orleans, and another was the organizer of the Door project. They explained what the project is and asked us to come up with some ideas to paint on the door. The woman had told us that what we would be doing is called Global HeArt Warming; she said we are taking stand against global warming using our HEARTS and using ART. The door(s) we will paint are supposed to symbolize something that we feel should change in the way we run our lives to help out others. She explained that Hurricane Katrina was most likely caused by a speed up of global warming; and the theme of the doors is to give back. She told us to think about the question, “what would the Kids of New Orleans need to improve how they are living after the city’s reconstruction?” We are to then incorporate our answers into the door paintings along with the Mardi Gras spirit! This project is going to be very big and publicized so I cannot wait to start.

We have been contacting the people from City Park. We already emailed and called Anna Frederick, Mike Mcqueen and Sarah Erinsin several times, ad we were about to meet with them today on 42nd street at 2:45pm but we both agreed that it wouldn’t be easy for us to travel there every week. As a group we decided that we should try to get in contact with Jefferson Market Library. This weekend we will try to find and email and a phone number we can call them and make arrangements.