Community Service-Cancer Walk

Yesterday, I attended a cancer walk/run hosted by the Wellness Center in Palatine. There were several tents set up: a volunteer tent, a registration tent, a food tent, a DJ tent, and a raffle tent. Dana, the coordinator of the volunteers, set me up by the starting line and the 5k run began first. Most of the runners had white Wellness Center Cancer Walk shirts and the cancer survivors had on purple ones. I was one of the few volunteers at the starting line and while the people were running, we monitored the walkway and made sure no cars happened to drive through. Then, when people were finishing up the run, we cheered them on, congratulated them, thanked them for coming, and offered them gatorade. This was the second year the Wellness Center has held the walk/run and there were less walk-on runners this year due to the extremely cold weather.

Then, the walk began. We continued monitoring everything and a volunteer drove around in U-Haul van, to make sure all the runners were done and that no cars were on the walk again. People walked with their family members, with their friends, and even with their dogs. Some had on their own specially made shirts, remembering love ones that lost their battle to cancer and some were walking with the cancer survivors in their life. One cancer survivor participated in the walk on his scooter, with his granddaughter in his lap. It was a very welcoming environment and the faces on the walkers/runners at the finish line were amazing. They were so happy and passionate about what they were doing and one family even took turns hugging us, the volunteers.

During the walk, I met Therese and she told me a little bit about the Wellness Center. They're an organization that provides many different types of free therapy to those with cancer, giving them with a supporting environment and showing them others that are going through the same things. She decided to help volunteer at the Wellness Center a while after her daughter was diagnosed with cancer. A lot of the survivors participating in this event were members of the Wellness Center and when you saw them talking to other survivors, you could sense the genuine happiness they were experiencing while being in this environment.

After the walk, there was a balloon releasing ceremony and while the balloons were flying in the sky, a lot of people got emotional. I had volunteered at a cancer walk before, but I hadn't come out feeling as great as I did yesterday. Even though I was freezing and could no longer feel my hands, I was content because I had met some great people, and I hope to someday participate in the run in tributes to my aunt who lost her life to ovarian cancer.

Community Service-Keshet

Last Sunday I visited Keshet Sunday School, a Jewish sunday school for people with special needs. I had never really interacted with people that have special needs, except for this man that comes into Walgreens to buy cigarettes every once in a while, so I didn't know what to expect. I met with Rana, the coordinator of the Sunday school, and she assigned me and the other volunteers to specific rooms. In my room, I met Rebecca, Tomima, Matt, Marissa, and a few others. Matt and Marissa had their own volunteers that had worked with them before, Rebecca was paired up with another volunteer, and Tomima was paired up with me. Tomima is one of the nicest girls I have ever met; she was covered in pink from head to toe, pink skirt, pink shirt, and even a pink wristband and she kept smiling wide at everyone that passed by.

The day consisted of singing songs, doing arts and crafts, and snack time. In the lunchroom, I helped Tomima make an Israeli flag for the Walk for Israel walk she, and the others, will be attending a week from today. I gave her strips of paper to glue and I helped her put the strips onto the correct spots on the paper. Then we made a handle for the flag and she signed her name on the back, with a pink marker. Talking to her, I found out her birthday was the next day and she will be turning 30, that she loves the jokes the Rabbi makes, and that Matt is her boyfriend. Rebecca and Tomima stayed near each other and kept complimenting each other on their sense of humor and they kept making everyone laugh, with their great personalities. Rebecca, the outgoing and talkative one, turned 27 that day so she brought cupcakes for everyone and felt really bad that the Rabbi wasn't in that room with us to share them. After cupcakes and snack time, we went back into a different room to sing songs. We clapped to every song and when it was all over, I walked her out to get picked up.

I had a lot of fun going to Keshet and meeting all of these great people; everyone was so friendly and I was disappointed to hear that their sunday school only went until the beginning of June. I feel extremely comfortable talking to people with special needs now and I will definitely volunteer at places helping those with special needs again.

Poverty and its Stereotypes

People are usually quick to label, quick to assume. If you go to a school where most of the population i upper middle class and you live in a trailer park, with no way of transportation other than your two feet, you'll probably hear names being thrown at you such as "trashy", "ghetto", or "white trash". People use these words so nonchalantly that they forget how offensive they truly are. People who live in poverty are usually labeled as "lesser" or even "lazy" and people often question why they don't choose to get a better job. It's not that easy.

In the movie we have been watching this week, they introduce a woman named Tammy and let us take a glance into her lifestyle. Tammy lives in a trailer, with three sons, and a car in need of repair just resting on her lawn. She works at Burger King, never takes off her work uniform, and walks 10 and a half miles to go to her brutal job. At Burger King, she greets most customers, kindly, while cleaning the restaurant. Then, after her long shift, she has to walk 10 and a half miles back home. She mentions that people often yell out names to her while she's walking on the side of the road, judging her instantly. Her eldest son looks at her life and automatically knows that he doesn't want to be stuck in this low-pay working class when he's grows up, so he tries everything to dress differently, teach his brothers to act "preppy", and even judges his own mother. He battles with this desire to break the social class system and work his way to the top. If he succeeds being working class, he will most likely not be accepted in his new class because society doesn't see that as where he "belongs".

Social Class

In class this week we learned about prison and how the increasing population of prisons relates to social class and income. The Henry Horner homes in Chicago are filled with violence and drugs and people from that area are constantly taken away to jail by the police, without question. Kids from Naperville were found in that area buying heroin and when caught, their licenses pended suspension and the police called their parents. Why is it that the poor are taken to jail almost immediately, but the rich get away with the same act and little consequences?

When reading Courtroom 302, the author successfully shows the reader the general population of these jailhouses: low-income minorities. These people weren't even charged with anything yet, they were in jail waiting for their court date. Low-income citizens are being dragged to jail for anything they can be charged with because the police know that they cannot afford their own lawyer to free them, unlike the rich. Someone who has been in prison before is likely to end up there again so the poor people are being caught in this constant cycle and cannot build their lives. We claim we don't believe in social class in America and that everyone is free but what is actually happening is that the poor are getting more miserable, acquiring help from no one, while the rich are having the road to freedom paved for them.

Act of Deviance

For class this week, we were assigned to take part in a positive act of deviance. Deviance is when someone goes against social norms or what is expected, either in a negative or a positive way. I went against what was expected of me when I helped an old man walk around the store I work at, picking out every item on his shopping list for him and offering coupons with those items. He asked if I was getting commission for what I was doing and I laughed, thinking he was kidding. He was serious.

When people do something outside of what is expected, especially if it's a good thing, people around them get confused. They aren't used to these acts and don't know how to respond. I try to be really friendly to every customer by smiling, asking how they are doing, or how their day is going. I always get responses like "why are you so happy?", "why are you smiling?", or "what's going on". It's so strange to me that they don't expect people to be friendly, but once I started paying more attention, I noticed that people are usually minding their own business and shopping on their own. If someone helps them or tries talking to them, they think that that person wants something, that there's something in it for them. If people commit more kind acts of deviance, our world will be a friendlier one where people don't think strangers buying them coffee for no reason is odd, wishing them a good day is strange, or giving a stranger a hug to brighten his/her day is not normal.

Parent-Teen Conflicts

This week in class we were asked to read an article about parent-teen conflicts. It made me realize a lot about issues that blossom between teenagers and their parents; differences in society and economics have a huge impacts on relationships, parent-teen relationships specifically. Teens are expected to act more responsibly, more like an adult but they are treated like children more and more each day.

Back during our parents' generation, teenagers had specific places they could meet and hang out at. Teenagers these days don't really have that and the media portrays us as "troublemakers", so finding teens a place to hang out isn't really important to anyone. Also, back then, males could drop out of school during their teenage years and support their family while working a tough job with coworkers that were older than them. I work at a clothing store now and everyone who works there, besides the managers, are around my age. We are all asked to do easy work and I feel like not much is expected from us; it would be impossible for us to try supporting our families on that job and we don't really have anyone there to be our mentors. However, at my other job, I feel lucky to be the youngest worker there. I receive advice regularly from all my coworkers, even those that are only a few years older than me, and it's extremely helpful. I learn from their mistakes and I feel more comfortable making decisions on my own at college because of all the advice they have given me.

More teenagers should understand that our parents lived through a different era, where different things were expected of them and society labeled them differently. They had more mentors that helped them become adults, helped them become more independent. Hopefully, more teenagers can find these mentors and adjust to adulthood more comfortably.

Media's Portrayal of the Perfect Human

As we learned in class this week, each person is exposed to about 20,000 ads per year. Even though we may say these ads have no affect on us, they do. They make us unconsciously shape a picture of the ideal body for both men and women, a body everyone must strive for. However, what some people don't understand is that these bodies aren't real. The bodies of supermodels, no matter how thin or beautiful, go through edit after edit to create the best, flawless product. Magazines publish pictures of pencil-thin girls with large breasts that are over sexualized, when in reality their bodies are impossible to have naturally. The media is creating this self-conscious society where no one is proud of what they have. If you're skinny, you can always become skinnier. If your breasts are large, you can always make them larger. If your muscles are huge, they can always get bigger. Thousands and thousands of dollars are being spent by people on plastic surgery to create this material body that isn't theirs; a body they didn't even want until the media made them think they wanted it.


Shows and movies add to the drop in self confidence and also add to the stereotypical gender roles. They portray the perfect man to be tall, muscular, confident, and not afraid of using violence when necessary. If a man shows a feminine side, they're labeled as "fag", "gay", or "girly". Thousands of kids who don't fit this "ideal" masculine man are bullied to the point where they fight back to gain their manliness. In the article by Kimmel, it even said this boy's dad labeled him as "gay" and "queer" for not fitting this body type. What hope do you have when even your family is putting you down? A good example of these images about masculinity and stereotypes about women are Disney Movies. Disney movies portray a great man as tall, masculine and a bully such as Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Also, in a scene we watched from Beauty and the Beast, girls are portrayed as weak and are supposed to be worshipping a masculine man, like Gaston. In AP Psychology class my teacher made a good point when she said that mothers aren't involved in Disney movies. The only Disney movie I can think of, where the character has a mother, is Bambi and the mother eventually gets shot in the middle of the film. Disney sends out a message that women aren't important.


If these messages are continuously sent to people, drowning their daily lives, our society will only be going downhill from here. No one will learn to accept themselves and others for who they are, what they look like, or comprehend that everyone is different. Being a skinny girl is just a body type and so is being muscular male; just because you have that body doesn't mean you're a better person. People need to start thinking about what is more important in life, rather than these fake looks that we're exposed to all the time.