Introduction According to Urban Ministry, more than 610,042 people are homeless in the United States and the Raleigh Rescue Mission(RRM) says 4,000 of them are in Wake County. Homelessness can have many faces and situations and sometimes people don’t realize it. According to RRM, 2,736 students in Wake County are homeless and one of them could be in your class right now. Reasons for homelessness can vary widely including addiction, illness, disease, high cost of living, a family disaster, domestic violence, mental illness, and poverty. Most people that are homeless don't have access to the many things that we take for granted such as clothing, blankets, medicines, shampoo and conditioner, shoes, and more. Raleigh Rescue Mission (RRM) is an organization located in downtown Raleigh that has been helping the homeless in many ways since 1961. Currently, more than 1,300 winter coats, hats, and gloves have been distributed this winter by RRM. Our goal is donate 300 of the urgently needed items to RRM through a drive at our school. We would also like to make a donation of 500 dollars through a fundraiser. We are interested in this issue because there are many students in Wake County that are affected by homelessness and some of them could go to our school. According to RRM, 1 in 30 kids experience homelessness. This proportion scares us and we can't stand not doing anything. We aren't the only people that should care about homelessness in our community. If you don't care, ask yourself some simple questions. What if you or a loved one ended up homeless? What if you didn't know where you were going to sleep tonight? What if you didn't know if you were going to get lunch today? Would you care then? We would. Also, homelessness affects our community in a negative way because there are people littering the streets with their trash and belongings, which is bad for our community. Having people hanging out on street corners 24/7 isn't exactly the “look” that we want for Raleigh. Even if you don’t care about the homeless population in Raleigh, you should care about the environment and the overall appeal of our city and that is affected by homelessness. The Issue Homelessness is not a new issue. According to the Downtown Coalition to End Homelessness, it has been around since 1640. So, how come we haven't found a solution? It's 2017 and still, 4,000 men, women, and children have to face the county's cold winter nights without shelter (RRM). Children are greatly affected by homelessness. According to RRM, homeless children are four times more likely to get sick than other children. Where do you think homeless children go when they get sick? Their house? No, they have to find a way to get better, sometimes without any medical care, blankets, or warm clothes. Also, according to RRM, 83% of homeless children are exposed to violence. It is hard enough to focus on school and school work when you don't know where you are going to sleep that night, but imagine being exposed to violence everyday. Why is homelessness in our community an issue? A future president, a genius who might invent a life saving invention, a singer, an actress, a mathematician, a teacher, or someone with an amazing talent could be homeless, but we would never know because they don't have the same opportunities that we do. According to washington.edu, homelessness affects a person’s health and their view of themselves as a person greatly. Once a person realizes that they don’t have a home their self esteem can drop substantially and this can lead to even worse personal effects. With this point of view, it’s hard to think about your dreams and your future, and a beautiful mind could go to waste. Homelessness is not a “one size fits all” problem. There are many scenarios of homelessness and one of the main factors that differs is the cause. Some of the more frequent causes include addiction, illness, disease, high cost of living, a family disaster, domestic violence, mental illness, and poverty. If this issue is not taken care of, a big percent of our population could become homeless. Do you want someone you know to become homeless? I didn’t think so. The Solution One thing helping homeless people in Wake County is the Raleigh Rescue Mission. They have helped almost a million people since 1961 when they opened. They make 140,000 meals a year to feed the homeless. Last year they kept 195 children with their parents which is a big deal because to some people, family is all they have. Another thing the RRM accomplished last year is giving shelter to 38,000 people and they also gave 13,335 housing referrals. Raleigh Rescue Mission is doing a lot, but we can do more to help the homeless population in Raleigh if we band together. For instance, you can donate food to the local food bank. You can also make sandwiches for the homeless or you can go to the soup kitchen and volunteer. You may think your service does not help, but it makes a world of difference to the people you are assisting. Because people do this, it gives people food who would normally not get enough nutritious food and everybody needs good, healthy food to live. According to LiveStrong.com the minimum amount of calories somebody should have a day is 1,200 calories or else they will suffer from malnutrition and they will be more prone to becoming ill because their immune system is not as strong as somebody that has a meal every day. Without enough food and calories, homeless people can suffer from malnutrition. The things that come with homelessness are more than just not having a home, you might not always have food which makes your immune system become weak. When you get sick you and can not afford the medicine you stay sick and their is nothing that you can do about it. In conclusion, just by donating food and volunteering you can save a person's life. Although RRM is doing a lot, people still need to help out because at the rate we are going, we will only help some of the many homeless people. It would not it be fair to only help some and not help all of the homeless population. So, we think that the more people that help, the quicker we can put an end to homelessness. Raleigh Rescue Mission can't stop homelessness forever, there are new people becoming homeless everyday, so we need to have help and maybe one day the homeless population will be extinct. Conclusion We propose establishing a drive for all the things that Raleigh Rescue Mission needs most urgently(not including food). The proceeds and all items gathered would be donated to the Raleigh Rescue Mission. Money will also be accepted and donated along with the items collected. Such items would include, but not be limited to: blankets, washcloths, socks, underwear, etc. The proceeds would be donated under the school's name. In order to accomplish this goal we would have to take a particular course of action with multiple steps. First, we would have to obtain permission from the school administration. Then, we would create two large signs along with multiple smaller ones. The large ones would be placed in the bus loop and in carpool. The smaller ones would be spread around the school in stairwells and on water fountains. The signs will be created by the art classes and will advertise our cause and display its name. We would also talk to Mr. Velarde to see if we could broadcast and share information on our school news. This publicity would be sure to get us more donations and support. It would be called the “Martin Middle Homeless Fund” to honor the school. The event would begin two weeks before school ends. Donations would be collected at lunch and after school in the cafeteria. We would set up stations, one for the donation of items and one for the donation of money, both in the cafeteria. Fundraising will finish a day before school ends. The donations would, with administrative permission, be bussed to the Mission in one of our school busses. We would go in person to 314 E. Hargett Street, the location for donating to Raleigh Rescue Mission, and take selected volunteers from the school to assist if there are enough needed items collected. If the Fund were to be successful then it could be continued in later years for longer periods of time and even expanded to include other schools. This year each and every Martin student would be able to participate no matter what grade they are in. The stations would remain in the cafeteria until the end of the fundraising and could be recycled for use in any later events. The goal of our charity would be to donate 500 dollars and 300 needed items to the Rescue Mission, however we would collect donations even after the goal is reached and surpassed. We would keep a tally and have every donation counted to know what we have left to reach our goal. At the end of every day we will need to remove the contents of both the donation stations in order to tally them up. We would place a meter in carpool to show everyone how close we are to achieving our goal. The charity would paint the school in a positive light and elevate our status amongst the rest of the community. We would become role models for similar programs and charities all around the county. More importantly, we would make a huge difference to the homeless community. We would be able to give people things that they desperately need and we would be able to give back to an organization that already gives so much. This is a picture of some of the many volunteers that donate urgently needed items to RRM from here.
Bibliography
Produced in collaboration with Guy Pierce and Lilly Gornto
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Recently parking meters have been installed in front of the senior center in Durham, NC. At $1.50 an hour and a two hour limit attendance has declined. "Whoever thought of the idea needs to go talk to their grandmother, or their mother, and find out how fair they think it would be," one senior said. I personally believe that the meters should be removed, seniors should not have to pay to attend their own center in our community, I believe that if it were my grandmother or grandfather being denied access I would be quite upset. People are still members of our community when the grow old and should not be overlooked just because the have aged. Members who used to park on the street when the parking lot is full are now going home instead of paying the fee. One senior, Gloria Rentrope, said "Coming here should not be stressful. I'm 71 years old. I don't need to be stressed out." Rentrope has begun a petition to have the meters removed, it currently has 203 signatures, everyone who cares about their elders should come out to sign the petition and assist our elders.
A decline in Wake County school bus drivers in our community is causing the school system to scramble to hire new drivers. This problem is in our community of Wake County and spans its entirety. If we don't have enough bus drivers then attendance will decline and educational quality may decrease in my school and others all around the county. When buses stop having drivers they stop running and more students are forced to provide their own transportation to and from school, which some are unable to provide and could cause significant issues in struggling families. At $12.55 an hour wake county is struggling to get more drivers. The minimum age is 18 with 2 years of driving experience, with a minimum of 30 work hours a week. There has been a decrease of over 100 drivers and sources speculate that the improving economy has caused the loss as drivers can leave for better paying jobs. there are currently only 760 full time drivers taking children to and from school. There has been a 3% raise in drivers salaries recently in an attempt to keep drivers on the job. I believe that further raises may entice drivers to return to their jobs. All bus riders could try to keep their bus drivers on the job by being calmer and friendlier towards them. A petition to raise driver salaries may also help keep drivers on the job. |
AuthorCooper, middle school student in Raleigh, NC. Archives
May 2017
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