School..and hunger & homelessness!

Jan 24th, 2008 by Roz in Activities, Society, Thoughts

So I started school again, and school’s only been in session for 3 full days, and I feel like I’ve done the work or something of a whole month!! I’ve been really busy with the club I’m in. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on here yet, but since last semester I’ve been very actively involved in a group on campus called CalPIRG. It stands for “California Students Public Interest Research Group.” The website is here if any of you are interested in finding out more generally what CalPIRG is. But the point is, I worked on a campaign called Campus Climate Challenge last semester. The point of this campaign is to raise awareness about global warming and to get the student body (as well as the faculty, etc.) to take action to help stop global warming. The Campus Climate Challenge campaign group (including me) all went to Washington D.C. this past November for the largest global warming conference in history, called Powershift 2007. Aside from that, we also held events on campus and have a lot of grass-roots organizing to put pressure on our politicians.

I did that all last semester. But now this semester, my friend and I have decided to run the hunger and homelessness campaign. Except we want to do it our way. The “CalPIRG way” has us do a “Hunger Cleanup” in which we can raise $10,000 dollars quite easily, but it just takes a lot of planning. We’re going to do it the “CalPIRG Way,” but we are also going to incorporate things we are passionate about as well. So I recently found out that in West Oakland (a city right next to Berkeley), there are no grocery stores nearby. So, the people who live there (lower-class) sometimes not only don’t have a car (therefore no means to go to a grocery store), but are forced to go to the nearest liquor store and buy liquor and chips..as food. That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. How could there not be a grocery store that is accessible to them? I don’t know how the mayor of Oakland or anyone else with an official position for that matter allows this to happen..so I’m going to see what I can do about it.

We’re also planning on doing service work for soup kitchens and shelters, but I want to do more than that. Maybe do a book drive to help promote adult literacy. Or work with the city of Berkeley (or put pressure on them?) to make sure the shelters/soup kitchens have enough funding.

All these ideas are still floating in the air, but I am so excited for this semester and what I can do. It’ll probably take up my life, but in the end, I know it’ll be totally worth it.

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  • That's so sad about the liquor store thing. It's a shame that they dont have a grocery store and there's like so many i could walk to right now.

    That's a nice group to be in though. I wonder if we have something like that in my school. I would so join.
  • wow... school... i really hate school too but.. i got to see my frens
  • it's weird to think about. I do believe global warming exists and it is a problem. However i do believe it will take a great many years for the planet to be truly effected. For the last few years where i live it hasn't been any hotter, but much cooler than average temperatures. I'm all for going green and everything because it will do everyone good, but it all makes me wonder.
  • Oh, you're inspiring me to go ahead and spearhead a couple of projects myself! I've had some ideas in my head, I especially wanted to start a Medical Explorers program at my school... ah well, never too late to do something!
  • i wish i had the time to devote to those kinds of things! even though im not school, i wish i could volunteer to do something nice for other people.

    we need more people like you! ;)
  • That sounds like such a great campaign. No grocery store? Geez! I hope there's something.. or rather someone, you can get to understand that there really needs to be a grocery store available for those people.

    I think it's awesome you're putting so much energy into all this and want to do so much. I'd love to one day help out in a soup kitchen or similar.
  • That's cool that you're so into that. I never really got into any extracurricular activities, myself.
  • Yea, I would raising all types of hell that there wasn't a grocery store. Sorry that you have to go through that.
  • That group that you are part of sounds really awesome! I'm looking at going into Conservation Biology so that really is something interesting to me. Too bad my campus doesn't have something like that.

    I can't believe they don't have a grocery store, or even a smaller 7-11 type of store.
  • No grocery store? Not even a 7-11? whoa, good thing you guys are there to help. You'll soon set one up!
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