One of the many things that I learned about Stockton now that I am halfway through the semester is that there are constantly events happening somewhere on campus. Even one-time events such as the Freshman Convocation are frequent. Freshman Convocation was an information presentation followed by a question and answer session with Christina Baker Kline, who wrote Orphan Train. When I first opened this freshman common reading novel, I was instantly enthralled. The story follows two separate lives that connect in interesting ways. A panel that focused just on what the author had to say about the novel was an opportunity for growth and learning.
At Freshman Convocation, Baker Kline came to the Performing Arts Center and spoke to a huge crowd of freshmen about the inspirations for the book and any other details about it. It was very interesting to hear first-hand from the woman who created such a story based on real-life events. Although the novel itself focused on two story lines, Vivian’s being particularly dark, it was eye-opening to see that this bouncing from home to home actually happened to real children. It was enlightening and depressing to see the pictures that Baker Kline displayed as she talked. It made the events in the story much more real and raw, and really made me appreciate even more what I have.
The PAC was packed with students; and it was rather overwhelming. Everyone wanted to hear what Baker Kline had to say about Orphan Train. This one-time event was on Thursday, September 25th and sponsored by the freshmen seminar program and Student Senate. For me at least, being able to hear directly from the one who wrote this novel was amazing. She told the story of the lives she herself learned about that the main characters, Molly and Vivian, were based off of. Also, she informed us that there is a movie in the works. It is certainly an event that should be continued for future freshmen classes. It was a very enlightening experience, followed by a book signing, that deepened my appreciation for Orphan Train.

My first semester as a freshman at Richard Stockton is coming to a close. After only a little over 3 months I feel like I have grown immensely. Being away at college opens one up to many different perspectives and ideas. I learned that there are so many people from different walks of life with different traditions than my own. Because this fact intrigued me, I decided to go to the Multicultural Music Festival held by Stockton’s Entertainment Team (SET). I discovered this annual event in an e-mail that was sent to me by SET. I thought it would be interesting to see all the different cultural acts perform on October 29, 2014. The festival ran from 8-10 PM, so after getting dinner my friends and I walked in and sat down at one of the many tables that were set up.
Upon arriving I learned that this once-a-year event, because it is annual, was part of Student Cultural Month. This is the month of October when the goal is for students to have the opportunity to become more globally aware. When I arrived, there was a group of three people that were singing a song in a language that sounded like French. It was very interesting to hear the different sounds and melodies of French music in comparison to the American music that I am normally exposed to. When they went on a break, my friends and I inspected the tables in the back and saw they were serving lemon bars and churros. Of course, because Halloween was a mere two days away there was also a big bowl of American candy. When we arrived back at our seats, the members of the Asian Student Alliance were on the Campus Center Event Room stage. They were doing a rendition, complete with interpretive dance, of the popular song “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” in the Disney animated movie Mulan. They even included some Chinese words in their performance!
Following the Mulan music, Stockton’s A Capella Vocal Group, the “Stocktones”, took the stage and performed a set of 3 modern songs. Because this event encouraged all student groups to participate, it was appropriate to enjoy some American music. After hearing the 3 different sets of music, I was amazed at how different they sounded. Yet, they had the same effect, they all were a form of expression that was meant to bring a group of people together. At the Multicultural Music Festival, I learned that there are many different ways that people can share a message, yet music is the language that spans the Earth.

As my first community service event, I chose to go to CODI’s food pantry. CODI is the acronym for “Career Opportunity Development, Inc.” I learned about this group through the Stockton Annual Day of Service on September 6th. There were so many different organizations to choose from; the Event Room was overwhelming! After browsing around the room for a while, the CODI sign caught my eye. I asked what it was about and immediately knew that this was the service project I wanted to spend the day doing.
When my service group arrived at the food pantry, a energetic woman welcomed us. It was just a little building that had a good sized food pantry, a main room, and a huge cafeteria/warehouse space with cafeteria tables set up. She separated us into two groups, and one group went into the main room. This group worked on putting two cups of oats into plastic baggies followed by two cups of rice into separate plastic baggies. The other group, my group, got right to work organizing the food pantry. This was a much bigger job than we originally thought.
Although the room wasn’t necessarily big, there were shelves and shelves of food items lining the walls. They were organized by type of food (soup, peanut butter, cereal, etc.), but the dates of them were all mixed up. Our job was to take inventory of all the items in our designated zone/wall and throw away the ones that were expired over a year. Then, we would reorganize the food items that were still good with the one that has the earliest expiration date at the front. As part of the reorganization process, we were also told to look on each individual can or box for the expiration date and circle it. For the cases of items, we circled the expiration date of the contents as well as the quantity in each box. This made it easier for the employees to deliver food to people who came to collect all sorts of consumables. The items without an expiration date were put on the center table into the “distribute first” box.
After about 4 hours of organizing the food pantry, we all took a break for lunch then came back together and helped the people who were still bagging oats and rice. This turned out to be the most tedious part of our volunteer service. There seemed to be never ending bags of oats and cereal (when the rice was gone we moved on to big boxes of Cheerios)! It turns out that the reason for this was because it made distribution to those who receive items from this food pantry easier. Two cups of rice was a better serving size than a whole pound. When we finally threw away the last bulk box of Cheerios and sealed the last two cups in a plastic baggie, we had done our part.
When we were finished, we had a bit of extra time until our bus came and we spent that time talking to the woman who was with us, organizing. She was so grateful that we helped so much; it was worth all the sealing, bagging and reorganizing to hear what a help we had been to her. In fact, she would have to have done all this work that eight people did virtually by herself. It was so rewarding to know that we had helped hungry people, indirectly. Because of all our organizing CODI would be able to efficiently distribute food items to people that need it most.
I had the opportunity to talk to her one-on-one for a short time and she kept telling me how thankful she was to us. Also, I learned that people without jobs in need of a little extra money actually came to the building and would do odd jobs like sweeping and cleaning for a profit. It turns out that this food pantry helps people in need in more ways than just providing sustenance! I actually didn’t much mind the organizing of the pantry and talked to her about setting up a sort of collection box for CODI on campus. That would make this experience more than just a one-time event and I would have the chance to work more with this organization.