On Wednesday, September 17th and Thursday, September 18th the American Red Cross sponsored a blood drive at Stockton. It was held in the Sports Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., where many, including myself, volunteered to give up their blood to someone else who needs it more. It is where everyone, including students and staff, come around to help a never ending cause. Most of the donated blood goes to help burn victims, surgery patients, cancer patients, and many others who are in need of blood transfusions. There are billions of people in this world, and only a small fraction actually donate, making each person count.

When I signed in I had to read a packet on what it means to donate blood, and who receives the benefit of my donation. It outlined what to expect from donating blood and any side effects that may occur. The packet also highlighted the importance of eating a good breakfast that is rich in iron. It also noted that my blood would be tested, and if anything came back positive they would notify me. Also, it had a long list of precautions against donating if I have been in contact with anything that might contaminate and risk the blood I would be giving to other people.

    The medical technicians were very courteous and took many precautions before I donated to make sure I would be safe and that those receiving my blood would be safe. When I was donating, the nurses were there the whole time, making sure I was okay. I laid down for about ten minutes, until I had a pint of blood filled, plus some test tubes to be used for testing. They precautioned me against working out and heavy lifting, and to drink plenty of water throughout the day. The volunteers offered food and drinks after I donated to help balance my sugar levels. The American Red Cross also provided opportunities for other students at the school, and allowed for those with nursing majors to volunteer and work the blood drive. This being my third blood donation, I have been through this process before, but this was more organized and thorough in my opinion.

On Saturday September 6^th 2014 Richard Stockton College held its 11^th annual Day of Service from 8:30am to 3:30pm. The goal of the Day of Service has always been to promote community service both on-campus and in the communities surrounding Stockton. Different clubs and organizations prepared unique service projects and students were able to choose what service project they would like to be a part of.                         Perhaps, one of the most popular choices was a suicide awareness and prevention project, organized by the club Active Minds.Over twenty students gathered around the Campus Center coffeehouse area in order to help Active Minds prepare for their upcoming suicide prevention week in October.                                                                                   One aspect of the project included making posters for the suicide walk that will occur on Sunday October 5^th. Each group designing a poster was given a different fact or statistic that related to suicide or depression awareness. Meanwhile, another group within the project was to cut and pin ribbons for the suicide walk. Ribbons varied in color as each color represented why the participant would be walking. Also a third group was working with shoes. The Active Minds club previously collected shoes to be displayed on the walk with the number of pairs coinciding with the number of college suicides in the last year. The students assisting with this part of the project were finding matching pairs for the shoes and tying them together to be displayed for the walk.                                                                                                                        Afterwards, Active Minds held a brief reflection session. Each person who helped with the project shared his or her experiences with depression and suicide in their lives and offered ways to battle the stigma in day-to-day routine. All left with a sense of fulfillment and knowledge that they were promoting a fight against one of the most deadly disorders in teens.                             

The Day of Service

I attended Stockton’s 11^th annual Day of Service on September 6, 2014.  This is a one-time event that takes place each semester at the college with both on campus and off campus service projects that volunteers can sign up for.   These projects are designed to help not only Stockton, but the community around Stockton.  It is also a great opportunity for the student volunteers to appreciate their school, community, and their own hard work.

At the Day of Service, there were many events to choose from, such as Books without Borders, playing Bingo with the elderly patients at Bacharach Rehab, doing a clean-up around the college, and helping out at a horse ranch.  My friends and I decided that we wanted to all do an event together to make it more fun.  We chose to volunteer for Waterwatch, which is the clean-up around Stockton, because it had many spots that still needed to be filled and many of us had done clean-ups before.  We met up with everyone else who was doing the clean-up, split into groups of 10, and got our assignments.  My group was assigned to clean college walk and the area around the campus center.  We each took a trash bag and a pair of gloves and set off to clean up our campus.  We picked up may different types of litter, but the most common was cigarette butts; we found them mostly around the campus center, nowhere near a designated smoking area.  They were the most annoying thing to pick up because there were so many of them and they are so small.

Even though picking up the cigarette butts was annoying, overall I found the event enjoyable; I was with my friends, we played music and sang, and we helped make our school a better environment.  And I gained a better sense of appreciation for the school and keeping it clean.  When I see someone about to throw their trash on the ground, I remind them to throw it in a trashcan or I pick it up and throw it out myself.  I also value the hard work it took to clean up campus; it was a really hot day and everyone was sweating, but seeing the finished product made it all worthwhile.

On September 6, 2014, I participated in Stockton’s Day of Service, in which various organizations gathered and offered multiple volunteer tasks to hundreds of people. It was a great chance to get out and see what actually needed help around the community and on the campus itself.

Walking around the main room, we had about 8 people in our group, and for some reason none of us wanted to separate, so we found an empty table with a sign that read “Water Watch”. At first, I thought we might go to the water plant of Atlantic County and see some internal procedures…but I was far off. Instead, this was an organization that focused on keeping Stockton’s fine campus clean of litter and pollution. Regardless, this was bound to be a productive day. But first things first… coffee!

Once we were divided into groups, the work commenced. We were handed a nice pair of work gloves, trash bags, and luckily I got the Grabber-Thing-A-Ma-Jig that picks up trash with the squeeze of a trigger. (I must tell you, I got very proficient with that tool…I could snipe a piece of trash from a good 4 feet away, and it was very satisfying). Once the equipment was distributed, we walked outside through Stockton’s silver arches and then we realized an inevitable obstacle…the heat. It was 80 degrees and rising, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Time to break out the water bottles!

As far as the trash collection goes, it was a very long, hot, and overall very rewarding process. With each individual cigarette butt or gum wrapper I picked up, I felt like the Earth was already a significantly amount cleaner. Even though that’s not the reality, it is nice to think that if everybody reduced their litter and picked up after other delinquents, the environment would thrive exponentially better. I truly felt like as a whole, the people who volunteered their time that day made a significant difference to themselves, the campus, and the community. I plan on attending this event for many years to come, and I urge others to do the same…every little effort counts in the grand scheme of things.

For my first honors service project I participated in the 11^th Annual Day of Service at Stockton College. On Saturday, September 6^th of 2014, I assisted the Water Watch club in a campus clean up. This service project consisted of approximately thirty students who split up into several groups to efficiently clean up different parts of campus with the materials provided by the club. All the groups were energetic and motivated to leave the campus spotless by the end of our project. At the end of the day as we took one last look around campus, we felt a sense of pride when we realized all our hard work paid off.

The most popular form of litter on campus was cigarette butts. After the Water Watch groups completed the clean up, we held a discussion to pose ideas on how we can minimize the amount of cigarette butts around our school. One solution we proposed was providing more smoker outposts around the school. Even though we do not want to promote smoking anywhere else besides the designated gazebos, we feel it would tremendously reduce the amount of litter if there were more outposts to discard cigarette butts. We also came up with the idea of posters and advertisements reminding students to properly throw out their cigarette butts and facts about the negative effects cigarette butt litter has on the environment.

Overall, the campus clean up was very productive, enjoyable and rewarding. Thanks in part due to the Day of Service, my love and interest in the environment has deepened. The sense of pride and joy I felt after cleaning my campus has lead me to continue my service by fully joining the Water Watch organization to participate in more campus clean ups and other activities to further express my love for my Stockton community.