Service Op: Lambs Farm

3rd Annual Lambs Farm Popcorn Days
Friday, October 1 and Saturday, October 2

Volunteers and Captains are Needed!

Lambs Farm and The Popcorn Factory have come together to raise needed funds to support Lambs Farm’s various programs and services for adults with developmental disabilities. The 3rd Annual Lambs Farm Popcorn Days will take place on Friday, October 1 and Saturday, October 2 in throughout the Chicagoland area.

Volunteers are needed to help collect donations at various storefronts and intersections. In exchange for donations, volunteers will distribute one-ounce bags of caramel corn from The Popcorn Factory. Please consider helping Lambs Farm by volunteering. Click here to download a volunteer form. If you have questions about volunteering, please contact Barbara S. Rudzin at 847-990-3733 or BSRudzin@lambsfarm.org.

Please consider being a Captain for this event. As a Captain, your main responsibility will be to recruit volunteers to collect donations in your community. We have developed a Captain’s training manual and the Lambs Farm staff will be available to assist you throughout the process. To download a Captain’s Manual which explains how you could play an integral part in this exciting event while raising money for Lambs Farm, please click here. Please contact Barbara Rudzin at 847-990-3733 or e-mail with questions.

We hope you will join Lambs Farm on October 1 and 2 and help us make the 3rd Annual Popcorn Days a huge success.

Service Op: Dan Seals Internship

Just got the following in an email. If you are interested in politics this might be a nice opportunity for your service experience:

My name is George Brown and I’m the internship coordinator with the Dan Seals for Congress campaign.  I’m emailing you today because our campaign is going to have an exciting internship program for high school students throughout the fall. I was hoping that you, as a social studies teacher, would be able to pass this information along to interested students or direct me to the proper individuals at Stevenson High School who could. Dan or one of his representatives would be happy to come speak to a group, discuss his positions and answer any questions. It really will be a competitive election this fall, and interns not only play a vital role on our campaign but are also able to learn a great deal about political campaigns and elections.

Feel free to contact me with any questions you have about the internship program or the campaign in general. Thank you for your time and best of luck on a successful school year. --George

--
George M. Brown
Deputy Field Director
847-945-8900

Remembering 9/11

As we remember September 11th nine years after the horrific events, it is interesting to consider where we are now - nine years later, through the lens of sociology. Over the last few months a ground swelling of hatred has been building against Muslims. This has manifested in an opposition to the Muslim community center near the site of Ground Zero, and it has spread to opposition to Muslims across America and even to a Koran burning in Florida. September 11th, 2001 was a terrible day in American history. Thousands of Americans died and tens of thousands were changed profoundly for the rest of their lives, whether it is ptsd, losing a loved one, or any other huge loss or change in their life.
Many Americans rightly feel anger, fear and outrage over these events. But unfortunately, many Americans have confused their categories and their stereotypes (from Joel Charon. Using Charon's discussion of stereotypes and categories we can see that all of the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks were Muslim, but this was a small handful of individuals. It is hard to come to terms with the idea that a couple dozen individuals could so radically hurt this country so badly. However, that is the reality - it was a small group of individuals who could all be categorized as Muslim. But the opposition of Muslims all across America as well as the Koran-burning would have many Americans believe that the category of terrorists being Muslim applies to all Muslims. Thus, the category becomes the stereotype. This view could not be more stereotypical and more wrong. I have students and friends who are Muslim. They are loving, wonderful people. In fact many Muslims were killed during the 9/11 attacks and Muslims all over the world were saddened for America and they came to our aid. Muslims serve in the United States armed forces - on our front lines! Humans can't help but categorize, but when that category becomes a blind judgment, it becomes a stereotype.

Habitat for Humanity 2010

Here's another great opportunity for a community service experience. There is a new Habitat for Humanity project in Elgin. Last year students went there and had a really good experience. Because of that, they have been willing to permit students from Stevenson to attend their project! Here is their latest call for volunteers:

Brush off your tools belts, lace up your work boots....a new project is underway!

Be the first of your friends to sign up for this exciting experience. Be a part of history in the re-making!

Holy Family, as a partner in the Spring of Life Habitat for Humanity will begin it's 3rd project on September 11th. This undertaking is the renovation of a small historic home in Elgin. Given to Habitat for a song, but requiring some historical preservation, work on this renovation will be a step back in time, just like "This Old House"! Join Bob Villa, uhhh, I mean Larry, Lee, George, the prospective owner and all the gang as they hammer out another beautiful home. Due to the size of the house, the scheduling of volunteers will be challenging and crucial. We promise to do our best to inform everyone of the amount of volunteers needed and the type of work scheduled for any given week. This should ensure a great experience for everyone and will facilitate talents matching needs. The details are as follows:

Where: 511 Washburn Elgin, Il.

When: All Wednesday and Saturdays from now till the end of February excluding Christmas and New Years.

The dates that Holy Family is obligated to provide volunteers: 9/11 9/25 10/9 10/23 10/30 11/13 11/27 12/11 1/15 1/29 2/12 2/26

LUNCH: Holy Family needs to provide lunch on: 9/11 (that's really soon...someone? anyone?) and 12/11

Email or call me as soon as possible if you can commit to a work date OR provide lunch. If you want to provide lunch, I can give you details on just how easy and rewarding this role is. Workers love when the food deliverer arrives.

Laureen
847-922-8276
lreidelb@comcast.net

And this is what she sent to me:

Anyway, we, at Habitat, talk about you all the time because your students are so fantastic and so dependable. We'd love to have them come out again but we may have to limit numbers. This house is only 550 sq. ft!! Fall, however, will be the perfect time for lots of outside work so I'm sure many of your students would enjoy that and we will not be as constrained by 4 walls. We will try to make it a great experience for them.

If you are interested, please let me know and also contact Laureen. She knows me, so tell her that I told you about the opportunity. Please be polite and mature. She has been very helpful to us.

Additionally, you can volunteer at their resale shop. Click here for info.

PADS 2010

As I have mentioned in class, PADS is a great opportunity for community service. It is amazing that there are so many people who need a place to sleep and a hot meal living right here in our community. Below is a flyer for PADS of Northwest Suburban Cook County. It is in Buffalo Grove, Arlington Heights and Palatine. If you are interested, checkout the info below. Also here is the link to PADS of Lake County. Also you can click here to see the list of PADS sites in Lake County, such as Libertyville, Mundelein and Wauconda.

Community Service Op: Election 2010

With the election coming this November, there is opportunity to volunteer for many political candidates. I'll list a few opportunities below, but feel free to find others:

For US Senate:
Green Party Leallen Jones
Republican Party Mark Kirk
Democrat Party Alexi Giannoulias



For 10th District US Representative:
Democrat Party Dan Seals
Republican Party Bob Dold

Community Service Op: Make A Difference Day - Halloween Funfair at Wheeling Township Office

Through volunteering and donating to the Township’s
Halloween Fun Fair for children with disabilities,
you can improve their lives and bring smiles to their faces.

VOLUNTEER as a service group to sponsor a booth.
(Call us for more details.)

When:
Saturday, October 23
Where:
Riley Elementary School
(Northgate Subdivision)
1209 E. Burr Oak Dr., Arlington Heights
Time:
11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m

Wheeling Township Report, Inc.
1616 N. Arlington Heights Road
Arlington Heights, IL 60004
847-259-7730

Welcome to the world little one...

Francesca Sofia 7.2lbs, 18.5in 7:08pm

Consuming Discontentedness

It is very interesting that as the economic boom of the 1990s fizzles, citizens have stopped staring at the great dollar sign in the sky and started re-examining their own lives. Instead of the socialized message of America that says put money above all else, many Americans are stopping and realizing that happiness often comes without the money. A number of books and blogs have been written by researchers about happiness and how to find it, including this blog by Rebecca Sato

The Consumer Paradox

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.
"By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth," they write in the study, which will appear in the Journal of Consumer Research.
The paradox that findings such as these bring up, is that consumerism is good for the economy but bad for the individual. In the short run, it’s good for the economy when young people believe they need to buy an entirely new wardrobe every year, for example. But the hidden cost is much higher than the dollar amount. There are costs in happiness when people believe that their value is extrinsic. There are also environmental costs associated with widespread materialism.
In the book “Happiness: Lessons From a New Science”, Richard Layard exposes a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most of us want more income so we can consume more. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. In fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. This paradox is true of Britain, the United States, continental Europe and Japan.
Statistically people have more things than they did 50 years ago, but they are actually less happy in several key areas. There is also the considerable cost of what materialism does to the environment. We don’t yet know what final toll that could take in terms of quality of life and overall happiness. What many people don’t understand is that if we want to save the environment then at some level we have to buy and consume less. We don’t need to buy so much bottled water, for example. Studies have shown it’s usually not any purer than city tap water, which doesn’t leave mountains of plastic bottles strewn across the nations landfills. It also wastes energy and resources to make those plastic bottles and the many other unnecessary things that both youth and adults alike believe they need to have in order to enjoy life and feel good about themselves.
Mad Magazine summed it up with the statement, “The only reason a great many American families don't own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.”
That funny statement, is only funny because it’s somewhat true. The reason people want whatever is currently “hot” is because they believe it will contribute towards their satisfaction and happiness in life. The word “believe” is the key here. People believe that buying more and more things will make them happy, when in fact research has shown time and time again that this simply isn’t the case. What we do know for sure is that buying more and more unnecessary things is damaging our planet and contributing to global warming.
Sure, one person being less materialistic isn’t going to make a noticeable impact on the environment, but it will make a positive impact in that one life. Once entire nations start to understand the myths about what really makes individuals happy, the world will stand a fighting chance.
“Be The Difference You Want. To See In The World.” 
~Mahatma Gandi.

Social Construction of Religion

The second  aspect of death and dying that I find interesting is the social construction of religion and our notions about God.   Karen Armstrong explores how different religions' ideas (and even atheists' ideas) about God have changed and evolved.  Armstrong has helped give me perspective about the social construction of religion and she has helped me sift through what I find meaningful and what I find shallow about religion.   Similar to Nigel's book, Armstrong makes the case that much of what I find difficult to understand about religion is more of a modern creation and a product of individualism and the humanism of the post-Renaissance.  Click here for a review of Armstrong's book in the NY Times.

Lastly, The Evolution of God by Robert Wright helps to reconcile the idea of science and religion. Wright provides ways of making sense of both.