My+Community+Service+Project


 * 1) Evidence of YOUR work on the Project: should include EVERYthing you have Personally worked on to complete the project**

-Looked up times that Judi Allen could come into to be interviewed.
 * **Wednesday 4/27 7:55 - 8:53**
 * **Thursday 4/28 8:53 - 9:49**
 * **Friday 4/30 9:49 - 10:45**
 * **Monday 5/2 11:15 - 12:45**
 * **Tuesday 5/3 12:45 - 1:30**
 * **Wednesday 5/4 1:30 - 2:15**
 * **Friday 5/6 7:55 - 8:53**

-Looked up City Council Meeting times (every Tuesday at 7:30pm) -Created a "storyboard" for the documentary -Is going to interview teachers/faculty members of MHS -Interviewed Mrs. Halks, the English teacher about how much money she spends each year and how much it has increased over the last 3-5 years. She has worked at MHS for 24 years. I did this interview with Winnie Chen. Thao Pham was supposed to go, but couldn't attend. We were originally supposed to interview Mrs. Ceppitelli as well, but had to help with senior prom, so we interviewed Mrs. Halks instead. -Helped organize different interviews -Came up with different questions for the interviews -Stayed after school 6/13 and 6/14 -Help edit the documentary and write a little bit of the script


 * 2) ONE Reflection - Journal Style**

This Generation Citizen Project has truly inspired me too actually make a change in my community. The school budget is actually a big deal if I think about it. I would hate to see one of my teachers get laid off or not have supplies they need in order to carry out a class lesson. Everyone has needs including the students and teachers of Malden High School. In this project, I tried my best to make the most effort that I could’ve possibly achieved. At first, the topic about the school budget did not really interest me because it didn’t seem like the budget crisis was that harsh on the school. After doing some research, I realized that this crisis is far worse than I thought. I did more research and pitched ideas to exploit some of the class ideas for this project. I know my ideas weren’t the best ideas, but I still put some thought into it and tried. To me, it was frustrating to not have my ideas heard, but I did share them. Also, I didn’t really like how our class didn’t take initial action right away. Once we had a determined plan, we took action. More research was done and the class was divided to work on something about the budget and how we could have people become aware of this topic. Everything seemed a bit shaky to me in the beginning because it was a little unorganized, but it all worked out in the end. I think the work I did on this project inspired me to actually do more work in my community. I really love how I worked together in order to pull off this project. I learned many new things about the city of Malden and its budget. Along with learning about Malden’s budget, I learned something very interesting, something that caught my eye. This was how it is affecting the teachers of MHS. Teachers are in charge of giving students a formal education, so that means, no money, no supplies. No supplies mean no education. Everything seems to be based off money, but that’s how the world works. Who knows where anyone would be if we didn’t have teachers! Teachers are inspirational people who help students in ways unimaginable. Teachers need supplies in order to teach and do their job correctly. That was one of our focuses in this project, to see where all the money goes in the budget, how it comes to be a budget, and how it is affecting the student and teacher body of MHS. It was also to have people in the city become aware of where the budget is at right now. I feel like I did my part of this project exceptionally well.




 * 4) FINAL REFLECTION - Essay Style**

Generation Citizen to me is a wonderful program and community service project. I definitely feel like if I work hard enough, that I can make a difference in my community. I thought that I wouldn’t really like this project because I wasn’t really concerned or rather interested in the school budget, but now I am interested. From the moment I started researching, I learned about different programs that may be cut, teachers that may be laid off, and other classes that would not be funded. I thought about different ways that one class could change opinions, even just the slightest bit. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take this to a state level or barely a local level of government, but we had many interviews within the school system. The interviews are especially interesting because we got direct input and output on how they are reacting with the recent budget. I liked many things about this project, one having the opportunity to actually learn about the budget and recent scale backs. I realized how it was affecting teachers, even in the slightest of ways. Paper was being printed smaller, teachers were asking students to buy more of their own supplies and recycled paper being used everywhere. I also like how I got to set up an interview and ask questions to a teacher who seemed affected by this budget scale back. I found out ho much teachers have to spend. Of course, it varies from teacher to teacher, but some end up spending hundreds of dollars on student supplies. It’s outrageous! I like the different ideas everyone came up with and I think from these ideas, we were able to build up on something bigger. There’s nothing I truly dislike about this project. However, I thought that it could have been more organized. Also, I felt like we needed to keep a consistent schedule. By this I mean, that one week we would totally forget about the project, and the next week we are rushing to get something done. It’s all about time management and how everything fits into a schedule. Other than that, there was nothing I did not like. Everything else went pretty smooth in my opinion. To me, this project was like Rocky Road Ice Cream. It was a shaky and rocky project, but it turned out to be okay in the end. In order to focus, work together and take action on a project, then you need to have the objective of what you want to do. You need to have everything prepared, but also do additional research on everything as well. I learned throughout the duration of this project that you need to complete these tasks. Everything worked out from a shaky beginning. Everyone needs to participate in some shape, way, or form. If they don’t, then you may fail. You need as much help as possible and also as much participation as well. This community service project, in my opinion was successful in our own way. We worked hard on it and pulled through the end.