On September 12, 2015 Stockton University held The Day of Service on campus. This was an event that acclimated the students to community services the school had to offer. One of Stockton’s main goals is to keep us (the students) involved in modern challenges and issues. Stockton had many stations to cycle throughout the day such as Civics, Hunger & Homelessness, along with others. Going to all of the events really showed what community service is really about. Progress in the community should not depend on primarily other people making a change, but should rely on the individual’s participation. As the key speaker Todd Bernstein said, “[The] government won’t help change the nation; it is up to us to make a difference”.
One of the stations that resonated with me was the Water Watch Club. As a child I thought that recycling was important, but it was perfectly OK for me to drink as many plastic water bottles as I wanted. The Water Watch made it clear that we have to reduce the amount of water bottles we use. Water Watch showed us that we (humans) are unintentionally making an island of pure trash because trash is thrown out into the sea and collects in spots. They also touched upon how much energy we are wasting for something that we do not need. It takes 50% of the energy they use to make the bottle and then 45% to transport it to local stores. Everyone nowadays talks about conserving gas and how global warming is a concerning issue. It would make sense that something so simple (switching to reusable water bottles) can help these problems. Tap water is checked more frequently for harmful bacteria then the bottled water companies, and the plastic bottles can contain BPA (that can cause cancer and other heath hazards). It is also much cheaper to use reusable bottles of water that costs pennies to fill up compared to buying a pack of water bottles. It doesn’t make cense to spend more money and waste more energy for something that is potentially more harmful for us.
Another station that surprised me was Join Together Atlantic County (JTAC). Its goal was to spread awareness of drug and alcohol use along with rehab. I knew that the state of New Jersey is generally a safe state, but I didn’t know that the biggest drug was heroin. As most people know, heroin is a very heard drug and would wonder why so many people would be using it. New Jersey has the cheapest and pure heroin in the country, making easy for people to get ahold of it. Trafficking the drug is very easy to do because of our location as a state. The scary fact about this drug is that the deaths of overdosing have tripled since 2010 and happen three times more often then homicides, suicides, and car accident deaths in the State. We all know how many accidents we see on TV but never really hear about people overdosing from this drug.
The Day of Service was really eye opening to me. It made me want to get involved and give back to my community. I am really excited to get involved and make a difference.