On Saturday September 6, 2014, I attended Stockton’s semi-annual Day of Service. Day of Service is an event where several organizations meet and perform service activities on campus and at nearby locations. We arrived at the campus center at 8 a.m. where we were greeted with a free t-shirt and breakfast. We then moved to the event center to choose which organization we would be donating our time and effort to. There were so many organizations and clubs present- there was truly something that everyone would be interested in.

I chose to volunteer my time to Books without Borders, a Stockton club that collects books and sends them to people who would not otherwise have access to them, such as children in third world countries. We went out to their on-campus trailer, which was packed with boxes filled with books of all genres. Our job was to unload the trailer, organize the books by genre, and finally repackage them to send them to a country that needs them.

Overall, this experience was truly eye opening in that I never really stepped back to look at how fortunate we really are. It is amazing that we take for granted something that seems so simple and trivial as books. Books are something we have always had easy access to and do not think much of how fortunate we are to have them. They are something that we are so used to having that we don’t realize that other countries do not have the same opportunity to access them. Thanks to programs such as Books without Borders, we can help to spread knowledge and send books to children in these less fortunate countries. This enriches their learning experience and allows them to experience things they otherwise would never have the opportunity to.

Jennifer Ling

The Voice

On November 12, 2014, I attended Stockton’s event “The Voice,” sponsored by the Stockton Entertainment Team (SET). This event was based off the television singing competition The Voice. The competition began with ten singers, all of whom sang brief portions of their song of choice. The judges chose students based on their first song to be on their team. Each judge had approximately three students on their team and met with them privately to discuss their team “game plan.”

While the teams were meeting to discuss which songs would be sung next, pretzels and root beer floats were provided for the students who came to support the event. After about 10 minutes, each contestant sang a snippet from another song of their choosing. Subsequently, four finalists were chosen from the group. The four finalists sang one last song and finally a winner was chosen. Each of the four finalists was rewarded with a $25 gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings.

Overall, the event was fun to watch and be involved with; however, it was slightly unorganized. The judges were confused of what their role was and did not know they were choosing students to be on their team until the third contestant sang. It took a lot of time to sort out issues that should have been discussed before the event started. Despite the few organizational problems, the event was fun and interesting.

On September 30, 2014, I attended “Crossing the BLVD,” a multimedia production based on the book Crossing The BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America, published in 2003. The show was an audio and multimedia one-woman production, performed by Judith Sloan, a co-author of the book along with her husband, Warren. The School of General Studies and The Writing Minor at Stockton College sponsored this event.

Sloan took a humorous approach on tackling the problem of discrimination against immigrants. She embodied different voices to share the stories of an array of many different people. Sloan argued that without immigration from other countries, many of us would not be here, as most of us are tied to somewhere other than the United States. She discussed many topics, varying from jobs that immigrants took, to why they had to move from where they originally lived. Sloan said, “These people leave the lives they have built to come to America to push a broom and take less desirable jobs.”

After her performance, Sloan reflected on her motivation for writing this book. She and her husband live in Queens, New York, a less desirable living area, and they began to realize that nearly all of the buildings in her neighborhood were run down and aged. As more and more immigrants began moving there, they began fixing up the buildings and turning them into homes, shops, restaurants, and other businesses. This was beneficial for the economy because these businesses were bringing money and income into the area, and also provided jobs. It made the area more desirable and eventually began to drive the housing prices in the area up, forcing the immigrants to relocate because they could no longer afford to live there, as discussed by Sloan. Overall, this performance was amazing and captured many aspects of immigration from the history to the economic value. We are all neighbors and should treat each other accordingly.