A SUCCESSFUL WEEK!

As you all know, the events that have taken place in the last week or so, have really proved to be a success. Through the very beginning there has always been an individual who has supported our ideas, and promoted our events. Mrs. Westmoreland has been there from the start, and we could not be more grateful. As Earth day week, comes to and end, the charity days girls have taken time to sit back and reflect on the wonderful experience that we all shared. We have learned to value our environment, and make peace with mother nature. I hope you have all taken something from this, whether its deciding to recycle more often, or perhaps even turning the faucet off while brushing you teeth. The fact that so many people came together, in order to make a difference really inspired us to continue passing on our values to others. Like we said before charity days is a movement, a revolution with a goal to inspire the younger generation to get up and a make a change.

CHARITY DAYS EARTH DAY 2011

CHARITY DAYS EARTH 2011, a set on Flickr.

Here are some of the images from the 2011 Earth Day events, hosted by Charity Days. We could not be excited about the outcome of our efforts. This event was truly a success, thanks to those who showed up and participated. Although there was a lot of waste for us to clean, we managed to make our time at White Rock Lake a joyful one. We managed to make a significant impact on our environment, and have influenced our peers to do the same.

LAST DAY FOR EARTH DAY ACTIVITIES

This week has been an amazing learning experience for all of the Charity Days members. We have successfully organized an event that helped inform the public about the danger we are putting our earth in. Although the past events that we have created have not gathered a large crown, the turn out for our Earth Day events have surpassed our expectations. We have taken numerous images, and videos in order to chronicle the efforts of our classmates in making this earth a better place to live. At white rock lake, Charity Days gathered over 50 bags of trash trough out the white rock area. When we first arrived on the location, we were in shock at the amount of trash gathered around the shoreline. People were dumping, cans, bottles, candy wrappers, and even tennis balls on the parks property. The trash was becoming an issue, taking away from the natural beauty of the lake. All in all the clean-ups had a favorable outcome, and we could not be more proud of all who volunteered and were involved in making this event a major success.

LAST DAY TO EARN SERVICE LEARNING HOURS!!!

Monday April 18th will be the last day to earn service learning hours trough the charity days organization. For those who have yet to participate in the Earth Day events you will still be able to earn up to 9 hours just by participating on monday!

Monday April 18th we will be holding two seminars. One at 11:30 -12:30pm in E076 and the other at 2pm - 3pm in K104. Come to whichever seminar you can make it too - you do not need to come to both because both will have the same information/program and you will still receive only one hour of service learning if you attend both.

Still not sure how to earn the full 9 hours on Monday?
- Come to one of the seminars = 1 hour

- Do the pledge at http://epa.gov/pick5/ (Print out and write your name on it) = 1 hour

- For every 3 people you get to do the pledge at http://epa.gov/pick5/ (Print out, write your name, their full names and their emails on it) = 1 hour
The maximum amount is 12 people which will give you 4 hours in all!
All Pledges are due on Monday the 18th.

- Where GREEN on Monday = 1 hour

- Get a friend to wear green, take a picture of you and your friend together and send it to ourcharitydays@gmail.com = 2 hours

IN TOTAL = 9 HOURS!

Please make sure to bring your service learning time sheets for us to sign on Monday! We will be signing them at the seminars so make sure you stop by! Also when putting your hours online on the Richland website, put your hours under special projects so there will be no confusion.

Earth Day events!!!

In order to celebrate our little blue planet, Charity Days decided to hold a series of seminars that will enable the public to better understand the strain that we are putting on our environment. As part of the seminar held on Friday April 15th we showed a short clip entitled "Pale Blue Dot." I felt that this film captured the problem we are facing today, in a short and precise manner.

NO MORE PLASTICS!

PLASTIC IS HORRIBLE.
I'm giving all of you a challenge: Go 7 days without any PLASTICS and see how well you can mange. I know it will be hard but I assure you it can be done.



Research over plastic in our oceans has been going on since before 1999 and everyday the amount of plastic debris and particles increases rapidly. You may think that a simple plastic bag from the grocery store may not hurt but if you don't recycle where do you think it goes. And even at that we can only recycle so much plastic. So before you go to the store remember BYOB: Bring Your Own Bag. 
Here's a organization that doing their best to reduce the amount of plastics in the oceans: Plastic Free Oceans

Earth Day T-Shirt

HEY GUYS we just created a shirt for Earth Day using customink.com please (if you can) buy this shirt and support the cause of Earth Day. I know it does not go to a charity at the moment, but in the future I'm sure we will be able to do so. Wear it on Earth Day just to remind people to be aware of all their daily actions.

The color of the shirt can be changed at will. (green is nice)

Earth Day Should Be Every Day.

I’m praying that one day Earth Day will be everyday. I’m praying that one day people will understand that the earth isn't just a house; I hope they will understand that the earth is just as alive as you or me. Maybe one day everything will change, maybe one day people will learn to care. Until that day I must do everything in my power to inspire change. Charity Days will  do everything they can, starting with an Earth Day Clean-Up.

Here in Dallas there are many places that are filled with trash and litter but for this event we will be focusing our efforts towards White Rock Lake. White Rock Lake is a park and as it being a park people tend to litter unconsciously. (I don’t know why but when services or items are offered free to people they are treated worse than services or items that have a price.) On April 16th and 17th ( 8A.M. –1P.M.) we will be coordinating Clean-Ups in collaboration with the White Rock Lake Shoreline Spruce-Up program. Along with these “Earth Day” Clean-Ups we will be hosting seminars at Richland College on April 14th and 18th. These seminars will be an attempt to get students, faculty, and people in general to care more fervently about their environments. Hopefully we will be able to get a video footage of the events to post on our blog and website. I don’t want to give an overview of the whole seminar yet. But I will let you guys know that at the end of each seminar the participants will be asked to part take in an agreement. The agreement will ask the participants to go to epa.gov/pick5 and pledge 5 beneficial environmental actions for the year. Along with doing this the participants will be asked to get at least 3 people to do the pledge and to tell as many people as possible about the new found understanding they received from our seminars. We understand that not everybody will be able to participate in our events but that doesn’t mean non-participants should be “non-participants.” Even if you can’t literally join in our effort you can still make a difference. Maybe you could host your own clean-up, recycle for the first time, and etc. There are tons of earth saving acts you can do this month, you just have to put in the effort cause nothing’s easy.

If your looking to volunteer at our Clean-Up or simply want to do your own trash clean-up I put a map of where exactly White Rock Lake is. If you don’t want to help clean up a park maybe think of contacting your city and seeing if they will let you clean-up the sides of highways with a group of volunteers.

White Rock Lake

Ok so I know I haven’t put enough information up about our coming events but give me at least two days to get everything finalized and everything should be posted soon enough. Outside of the EPA pick5 I found another website that I sort of knew about beforehand. If you’ve heard of earth hour you’ll probably remember your third grade teacher telling you to tell your parents to turn of all lights and appliances at 8:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. But if you haven’t heard of it that’s ok too. I put a little widget below that will link you to the website. At website you can also pledge environmental actions but since their self-created you have to put a little thought into them.
                                                         
I think Earth Day is one of my favorite days of the year and I hope that you find that Earth Day is better being everyday.

The Clothing Drive continues...

Today we decided to kick our clothing drive up a notch, and found an excellent way to get the word across campus. We consulted our RCHS counselor, Mrs. Westmoreland, and she agreed to send out a faculty e-mail containing information about our charity. Due to the campus weather closings, we have decided to extend the deadline for our clothing drive. As of now we have collected over three large bags of clothing from various classmates, and are extremely optimistic about the future. We have also done a photo session, in order to obtain pictures that would be appropriate for our website, which is currently under construction, and should be up and running by mid April. We have also held many group meetings in order to discuss future events, and various ways in which we could obtain more supporters. Our main struggle right now is raising awareness about our charity projects, and getting our classmates motivated and involved. We want to get as many of our peers on board as possible, in order to make our projects an even greater success. Right now we are at the prime stages of developing a community wide Earth Day event, which will enable RCHS students to gain volunteer hours. We realize that by creating an event that promises students service learning hours, we would be able to gather a much larger group of motivated individuals. We have also been tracking our progress, and are extremely proud of where we are right now. Although we do wish to begin working on much larger projects, we know that all good things start small.

CLOTHING DRIVE

As many of you know the weather has been really rough lately, and due to school closings we were unable to set up donation boxes on the 1st as planned! Our charity clothing drive will begin on the 3rd of February, and continue trough the entire month. We are extremely excited about our latest project, and hope to make it a successful event which will benefit our community. I want to remind everyone to please bring at least one item of clothing. Every individual has the opportunity to make a difference, even the smallest act of kindness has the capability of setting off a positive chain of events. Since our classes are now in full swing we are trying our hardest to keep our charity work going, and our blog updated. If you haven't already, please follow us on twitter, and Facebook were you can find further information on our organization and latest expenditures. Remember there is power in numbers, and we cannot accomplish this without you guys! On thursday we plan on talking to our advisor Mrs.Westmoreland, regarding advertisements for our clothing drive. We hope to get an ad in the College newspaper, and perhaps even a shoutout on the local radio channel. We hope to start this clothing drive off strong, and raise over 600 articles of clothing. Although we are starting small, we hope to one day expand charity days into an organization that has the power to create significant change, not only in our community, but throughout the nation. A wise women once said, "We can do no great things, only small things with great love."  ~Mother Teresa
***wish us luck!

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