Trying to Help out Everyone

Part I:

Everyone could use a helping hand. No matter if it is taking groceries out to the car, or having people give you free food and clothes. That is why community service is such a major role in society to make us grow as people. Giving back to the world is just as important as taking from it. That is why I feel that what our school does in the way of community service is necessary for all schools. Kids need to realize that it is not just all about them. We are all human beings and deserve as much as a chance as everybody else. Not everyone is lucky enough to be born into wealthy communities, but everyone should feel obligated to help out other people when they are in a time of need. Other schools should have community service because we are the people of the future. If we do not learn how to give when we are young, how should we be able to learn to give when we are older? Community service is such a viable thing because it teaches us a lot of things about other people and ourselves. Through community service, people learn compassion for others and understand that the world is not as perfect as it seems.

For my community service I worked for two organizations. One of the two organizations was Christmas for Everyone. This was an organization was about helping out families in need so they could enjoy their Christmas without any stress. My second organization was for Walnut Creek Warriors Lacrosse which is a non-profit youth sports program. I did most of my blogs about youth sports, but for this paper I decided that poverty has much more community need. Considering that the income earned by the richest 50,000 people in the developed world almost exactly equals the income of the 2.7 billion poorest (DeRouen) is far more of a problem striking our world. This number is unfair but will not be changed for awhile. If these numbers can’t change, then people need to help out the 2.7 billion who are barely surviving. Anything can help whether it is a dollar a day to a charity or if it is going to a third world country and building the town a school or a family a home.

“The UN measures poverty with a three-part index comprised of education, health care, and economic strength” (DeRouen). This shows that poverty is not all about the amount of money you have. Money is a big part of poverty because if someone had access to a lot of money, then they would not have to worry about getting good education and health care. The poorest communities score low in this category because they have no access to money. And no access to money means no access to food or water which can ultimately lead to death. “Life expectancies are very short in the poorest nations of the world. For example, 2008 data from the World Health Organization indicate that life expectancies are less than 42 years in Afghanistan and Zimbabwe and less than 47 years in Lesotho, Chad, Central African Republic, and Angola. This is in contrast to people in developed countries who can expect to live over 75 years and can reasonably expect to see their grandchildren grow up” (DeRouen). It is unfair that people do not get as good as a life because a lack of money. I feel that everyone should have the same exact chance as everyone to be able to enjoy life. A lack of money should mean no fancy vacations or no five star meals, but not a shorter life. If people in richer countries live about thirty years longer, this should tell developed nations to help out. It should be a moral duty to try and help out the weak when you are the strong.

I believe that when someone is done, you pick them up. Whether they have fallen or they have no home is no different. Many kids I know go to Mexico every year and build homes for the less fortunate. They can’t shower for a week, work hard all day long, and get paid nothing. People care about other people. That is why they would sacrifice their time for other people’s happiness. There is also National Charity Leagues where people do community service like working at food shelters. People like giving their time and are happy to put a smile on someone’s face. Developing nations aren’t the only place where there is poverty. In the United States, 37 million which is 12.6% of the population lives under the poverty line (Smith). If 36.5 million people live in California, which is basically our nation’s most populated state living under the poverty line. And that number is poverty number is growing. In five years, five million people in the United States became poor (Smith). This probably has to do with a bad economy or not being able to get a job. And it is not just that. “Forty percent of children born in the bottom income quintile will remain in that quintile as adults” (Smith). People who are born into poverty have a big chance to stay there. If these people do not have the will power to get out of their current position, then they will have no reason to leave. The government has many shelters for poor people. These people can go there and get food, water and a bed to sleep in. This is probably the best they could get without going to prison. A hot meal, some cold water and a place to sleep that isn’t a park bench is better than what they are used to. The government is also looking into health care so this could possibly help out the people that can’t afford it. Considering that 19 % of children in poverty and 11.2 % above poverty do not have health insurance, this could really help. President Obama has made it so that kids on their parent’s health care plans now have to be on it until they are twenty five. I think this is good because many of those people would probably not have health care because a lack of money.

Part II

“Americans donate $300 billion to charity every year, according to Giving USA 2009” (Dorian).  This is a great start to such an important cause. If every developed country could help out developing countries, those countries would be able to have proper education and health care to live better lives. In the United States, people have a different view on how the government should respond poverty. “Some people believe that the government should be doing more, some believe it should be doing less, and some feel that the current role is about right” (Gorman). I think our government should do a little more about poverty. We have a progressive income tax which I think is good because it deals with income inequality. Our government also has public assistance programs. These programs include federal unemployment insurance, Medicare, and federal welfare programs like food stamps to help poor and temporarily hard-pressed households to make ends meet (Gorman). These to me are very good ways of helping out. These families may be embarrassed of using food stamps but if comes whether to eating or not, I am sure they would rather use the food stamps. “Nearly 40 million Americans received food stamps -- the latest in an ever-higher string of record enrollment that dates from December 2008 and the U.S. recession, according to a government update” (Abbott).  This number isn’t very shocking to me. Everyone struggles to put food on the table and they have got to do it anyway they can. Food stamps are an easy way for them to get food to feed their families and still pay bills. But critics of helping the poverty more and the way the government measures poverty are still there. “One on-going critique is of the types of income that are included in (or excluded from) the poverty measure. By failing to include income that many low-income people receive in the form of public assistance, some critics maintain that the extent of poverty is over-stated. If the value of food stamps, publicly provided health insurance benefits, and cash welfare payments were counted as income in the poverty calculation, many people would no longer be considered poor” (Willis). Maybe we should give these poor people cash payments instead of these benefits and maybe they wouldn’t be considered poor.

As we learned in economics, money is a tricky thing. You can invest your money in the stock market to help you get more, but if you don’t have money you can’t. We learned about capitalism and about how it is all about the greatest good for yourself. I am glad we don’t live in a capitalistic society because then we wouldn’t help the poor. No one would care about the others suffering and would only worry about getting more money. Also we learned about taking loans out on homes, but some people can’t afford homes so they are forced to live out on the streets. We also learned about having disposable income and savings but people in poverty don’t have enough money for that. “Having access to saved income or other assets (e.g. a home) creates stability in a person's financial life” (Tax Policy and Poverty). These people can’t create themselves a sustainable life and then end up living on the streets due to money problems.

Part III

In Thomas Friedman’s, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, a major topic he talks about is how our world’s population is getting very big. If our world is getting bigger and bigger, we need everyone to have an equal opportunity for a good life. This means we can’t have people in developing nations living thirty years less. This is a major disadvantage that no one has a choice because some people can’t choose where they live. If people in developing nations don’t have access to education then they will not be able to have a job that pays a decent wage. And if they don’t get paid a decent wage, then they can’t pay for health care. It is a cycle that needs to be address if more and more people are going to live on this planet.

During winter break, my fellow teammates and I went to Christmas for Everyone where they collected Christmas presents for the less fortunate. There was a whole gymnasium filled with donations of new and slightly used items. There were tons of toys, clothes and miscellaneous items stacked up in huge barrels. The organization was using what looked like a church and Sunday school to help people in need during the holidays. The other great thing about this event was that they were collecting food. They were collecting food so families could have a nice family dinner and not have to stress about coming up with the money to pay for it. It was nice to know that people still cared for other people. We need to have more organizations like this so people can help others. A lot of people are better off than others so I think that those people should give back. Not everyone can be successful; it's hard to make a lot of money. But we can't as people not help out the needy. It felt good knowing what we were doing was for a great cause. I am also glad to see that there were so many people there helping out. Every one could use a helping hand, and for that Christmas it was our hands. It was an eye opener about how many people actually do need help. Even though most of my hours were helping out with youth sports, working for a poverty based organization really put it into my mind that I should help out more with my free time. Poverty is all over the world and you can never stop helping the cause. I knew if I didn’t have a home or food to eat I would love a helping hand and would forever be thankful. That is why many people do community service and give money to charity. “Many researchers told us lower income people give more because they think they are more likely to need charity or know someone who needs charity” (Stossel). This is a good thing because people need to help out their friends and others in their situation. If my community service was for just one Christmas, then there has to be at least five gymnasiums in every city around the world to help out the needy every day. Even this does not seem like enough to help out everyone. It is hard to say whether we can fix this problem as a whole or not but we need to make steps forward to change it. We are all part of this world so we should treat each other like family.