Government Volunteership

15th Post: Done with my hours!!!

2012-01-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

So far I'm done volunteering with the wonderful folks at Planned Parenthood and now I've started volunteering everyday at Explorer Elementary. I go over and help the kids in a 2nd grade class read, and I'm going to do it for the whole month of January just for fun. They are incredibly cute and talk in wittle voices! I also got up at 4:30 in the morning on Sunday to volunteer at the Resolution Run over at De Anza Cove in Mission Bay along with the other Roots and Shooters. It was freezing cold but it was fun since our only job was to cheer on runners at the start and finish line. And I got on the news!

As for Planned Parenthood, we still have the Volunteer Appreciation Party over at Slaters on Wednesday so I'm excited to see everybody!

Hours to Date: 45 DONE!!

14th Post: To Moreno Valley We Go!

2012-01-02T22:09:00.000-08:00

Today I got to Planned at 10 and met up with the rest of the volunteers to begin training for what we would be doing for the day. We each got a white Planned Parenthood bag filled with doorhangers, brochures, a clipboard, and condoms. Then Luis went over the different brochures that were in the bag, with info about the different PP locations around California and the services they offer including cancer screening, different birth control methods, pregnancy planning and STI testing. So we went over lots of information which I'm happy to say I already knew! It feels good to know how much I've learned here, I feel so educated.

After training me, Luis, Carol, Kaitlin, Danathen, Armand, and Elliott hopped into a van in matching Planned Parenthood T-shirts and drove to Moreno Valley where we first visited the Moreno Valley Planned Parenthood for a quick tour. Then we went to lunch at Olive Garden which took waayyy longer than we expected. The chairs there are on wheels! Which seems very unnecessary but makes eating there alot more entertaining. Breadsticks were the highlight I've got to say. After lunch, we got to the real purpose of the whole trip. You see, the Moreno Valley Planned Parenthood is one of the largest Planned Parenthoods yet they have one of the fewest amount of patients. So it was our job to get them more patients by making it known to the community that there was a Planned Parenthood nearby and tell them about the different services that they offer. So we visited two different apartment complexes in the area and went door to door, talking to people and letting them know about the Planned Parenthood that was readily available to them. We all really didn't want to go knocking on people's doors at first but I think we kinda got used to it, or went to plan B which was just to leave a doorhanger on their door with some info on it. Which I have to admit we did alot. I was doorhanging with Carol and Kaitlin and the first guy we talked to invited us to come into his apartment anytime because he said he got lonely. It was kinda funny, he opened his door before we even knocked on it. We then politely excused ourselves because Luis's, "DO NOT GO INTO ANYONE'S APARTMENT" rang in our heads. Yeah the first apartment was a bit sketchy. But the second apartment complex was great! Although it was HUGE and we had a bunch of apartments to cover so it was alot of work. Every single apartment had its own staircase so we had to go up each one separately to hang a doorhanger, so by the end of the day we were exhausted! We went up at least a hundred staircases that day, not to mention it was a very hot and sunny day in Moreno Valley. But we are very dedicated volunteers!

But the highlight of the day came after the apartment complexes. We each were given a big yellow envelope packet and we had to hand deliver them to different hotels in the area. So we went from hotel to hotel, swinging the van door open and jumping out to deliver envelops to the front desk as if we were on a mission. It was pretty entertaining. After the hotel dropoffs we headed back to San Diego, and I'm pretty sure all of us fell asleep at some point, we were all tired by the end of the day. We got back to our beloved Mission Valley Planned Parenthood around 6 and our day was complete. Overall it was a very fulfilling day and it was alot of fun! And I'm almost done with my hours!

Hours to date: 37

11th Post

2011-12-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

Today I mainly focused on typing up some more patient stories, they are starting to all sound the same but every once in a while they get pretty interesting. Typing is very calming I'm finding out. Other than that I spent some time in the copy room cutting flyers to hand out, not a very action packed day at volunteership but I got hours so it's all good.

Hours to date: 28

10th Post: Condom bags!!

2011-12-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

The gals

The table rainbow

Tabling!

Our condom bags!

Today we got to skip school and spend the whole day at Planned Parenthood! We started off the day making condom bags that Planned Parenthood hands out while they table at different locations like college campuses. It was alot of fun making them because there were 10 of us and we did it assembly line style and the bags had to include a condom, lube, and brochures, all in a cute little bags tied with ribbon! That was alotta fun and then Jen, Neil, and Luis gave their own separate presentations and we learned about different STI's, condoms, goals and missions of Planned Parenthood, how a bill gets into law, and got a demo on dental dams, which smell quite good. There had vanilla scented!! After we were educated we had lunch, pizza as usual and ate around the table. Lunch was full of silent staring while we ate, purposefully awkward but funny nonetheless.

Oh and we got to set up a table as we would if we were tabling at a school or something. I was in a group with Kaitlin and Carol and we decorated our table with various items including condoms, lube, dental dams, brochures, pens, business cards, condom bags, and candy! We did a pretty good job and our table was real pretty, I made a rainbow with some of the stuff so I was proud. After we cleaned the tables up we split up into groups and I had to do some more data entry, which included typing up some more patient stories. I did that until I left and overall it was a great day!

Hours to date: 24

9th Post: Story typing

2011-12-06T11:20:00.000-08:00

Today me, Carol, and Shabron worked with Erin on typing up some patient reflections that we called patient "stories". Most of the stories just included alot of praise for Planned Parenthood, but I can't say much about them since it's confidential. We did that for most of the 3 hours we were there, and I didn't mind it much because I loved typing on their keyboards!!

Hours to date: 18

8th Post: Victory!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-11-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

I'm very happy to announce that Initiative 26 was NOT passed!!!!! So women in Mississippi will continue to have the choice to do what they want with their bodies, without government interference. All of us at Planned Parenthood were extremely happy to hear the results and we celebrated over a thank you turned victory dinner last Friday at Gordon Biersch. It was alot of fun, Luis and Rachel were there, along with some of the Planned Parenthood employees and some of the other volunteers from HTHI including Kaitlin, Sam, Shabron, Bella, Yoshi and Karan. At the dinner Luis showed us some of the graphs of the voting in Mississippi and of the phonebanking done for No on 26 around America. It showed that California did a HUGE portion of the calls and that Mississippi is sending a message that it is unacceptable to allow politicians to interfere with a woman's personal decisions. It also warns against pushing the Personhood amendment in other states because if Mississippi, one of the most conservative states won't allow it to be passed then they are gonna have one hell of a difficult time passing it in other states. Double yay!

During the dinner we got a visit from the head honcho at Planned Parenthood, who said he really wanted to see the high school students that did so much for Mississippians For Healthy Families and thank us for the thousands of calls we made. He said we were an amazing group and our work was incredible! We were smiling like the sun:)

Rachel also awarded us with the giftcards that we earned with the points we gained during phonebanking and I got a $25 giftcard to Target! Pretty sweet. Volunteering for Planned Parenthood is awwwesome! I also had some mucho yummy garlic fries and fried artichoke hearts, plus a brownie a la mode. There is no better way to end phonebanking than with reaching the goal that we worked so hard on, so I'm excited for whatever comes next. The dinner celebration was alot of fun, an amazing group of people! Now I just wonder what we will do now...

Hours to date: 15

Below is a link to an article from the New York Times about the victory!!!
[Mississippi Voters Reject Anti-Abortion Measure]

And heres an article on the views of the Personhood Amendment from a feminist site. I just found it entertaining, they are some funny gals.
[Vote no on bullshit]

7th Post: Adventures in phonebanking

2011-11-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

This Tuesday was an odd day at phonebanking because it seemed like the world really didn't want me to phone bank that day. First I couldn't log onto my computer for the first 10 minutes, then as I was on a call my computer screen went black along with the script I was reading on screen so I was stumbling with words until I could find my paper copy. Apparently my computer got unplugged somehow which left me getting blind calls, so I would get my next caller but I wouldn't know who to address since the name that appears on the screen wasn't there. So one of my calls went like this, "Hi! Is Ms. (screen goes dark) uhh..." But I yelled for Rachel and got my computer started up again, which took longer than our school computers take to start up. Which is a long time. Once my computer was up I couldn't log on again for some reason, so then Rachel had to yell for Luis, who then had to call a tech guy to get me logged in. I ran into quite a bit of problems that day but I finally got started with my calls about 30 minutes after everyone else did, so much for trying to beat Karan this time! After a while everybody in the office stopped getting calls altogether, which was odd because they usually just come one after the other. So then Luis gave us a break until he figured out where the calls went, apparently we went through the whole list and he just had to add more numbers. So then back to the phones once again!

This day the calls were pretty pleasant for me, didn't get alot of hangups surprisingly. We were focusing on really persuading people today to vote no on Initiative 26, even the people who are for it, so it was a bit harder. But I was fine doing it because I'm proud to say I know my facts now! I was so happy to be able to provide people with facts and such without even looking at my fact sheets, it's all in the noggin now. I actually ended up calling one of our phone bankers in Mississippi which was a really fun call because basically we kept on thanking eachother for helping with the campaign, and she was really surprised to hear that there were high school students helping out with the cause! Other than that I got this lady, I'd label her a "talker", who told me I made a good argument but then told me that she was leaning on voting yes on 26 just because she just wanted to vote the opposite of what her gynecologist was voting for. She just really hates her gynecologist and launched into a completely irrelevant story about the man and why hes so bad, to which I really didn't know how to respond to. Jeez just get another gynecologist! So I just gave her a website to check out and politely ended that call.

Overall pretty good day, plus I got to do it all in my PJ's since it was pajama day which made it so much better! After the phonebank we headed back to the conference room for debrief and pizza once again, and thats always fun when we get to hear about other peoples calls. There are only 2 phonebanks left on Saturday and Monday before Mississippians get to vote on Nov, 8 so we are pushing through our calls and I'm excited to get to hear the results! Plus on Friday we are all going out to eat at El Torito's to celebrate and hear the results together, so that should be fun because all of the people who helped phone banking for Mississippians For Healthy Families are gonna be there and it'll be nice to see all their face again! Plus free food WHOOHOO!!

Hours to date: 12

6th Post: More Pizza...

2011-10-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday this week I did another phone bank and it went really well! I still got alot of hangups but this time I also convinced alot of people to vote no on Initiative 26 so it felt really good. Plus each time we have a call that results in a no vote we alert the rest of the office with a little noise maker, mine is often a maraca, pretty festive. I loved sounding off my hand clapper because then Luis always responds with a little "Whoohoo!" from somewhere in the building. I did it like 10 times and it only gets more and more entertaining because he never fails with his Whoohoo's no matter how far he is! I got my first deceased call which was pretty depressing, apparently the person who I was asking for just died the day before so I apologized like crazy! I found myself saying sorry alot that night since I kept getting elderly people to call and unfortunately I was calling around their bedtime. I woke up poor old ladies:( Not too many mean callers so thats awesome!! I reached 95 calls this time, but I still got beat by Karan with 96! Gahhhhh! But it's all good, this week we had over 10 people from HTHI show up so it was pretty fun and we ended the night with pizza as usual.

Hours to date: 9

5th Post: First full week

2011-10-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

So this past week I've gone to my volunteership at Planned Parenthood twice now, on Tuesday and Thursday. At Planned Parenthood, me and a couple of other people are doing phone banks. So basically we call people in Mississippi to try to get them to vote no on 26, or else abortions, common types of birth control like the pill, and invitro fertilization will be banned in Mississippi. On my first day I met Luis and Rachel and the other volunteers, and then had training so I would know what to do during the phone bank and I got to learn about what I needed to talk about. I was really proud of myself on the first day because I made over 77 calls and it was the highest number of calls for that day so I got a $5 gift card to Starbucks!

Volunteership at Planned Parenthood is actually a lot of fun, especially since a couple of us at school do it together, and even though we get separate cubicles to make calls we can still hear eachother over the walls and it gets pretty funny. Some of the people we call have quite the personality, and it's fun to hear the volunteers deal with them in their own way. It goes pretty fast, so thats not bad. Except for when I get yelled at, but hangups aren't that bad. The calls that we make are directed toward women in Mississippi but sometimes the husbands will pick up and they get pretty stand-offish, the last call I made I got yelled at which was not fun. But you just have to learn not to take offence to anything and stay polite, no matter how much you want to hang up on them. Plus we get so many snacks which is awesome and dinner afterwards, where we debrief and talk about the highlights of our calls. So overall a really good place to volunteer, it's a fun environment and our volunteership coordinators are awesome!

Volunteership Hours to Date: 6 hours

4th Post: Got a volunteership!

2011-10-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

So I finally decided to volunteer at Planned Parenthood, which is kind of ironic since it's the opposite of what I wanted work-wise since it's mostly a desk job. But alot of people from class are going to volunteer there too so it should be fun. My first day is on Tuesday! So I'm excited to get started and see how it is.

3rd Post: Finding a Volunteership

2011-10-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

As of now I'm still in the process of finding a volunteership. Me, Carol, and Jesus really want to volunteer together so we are all trying to find an organization where we can do a lot of hands on work because none of us want to be stuck behind a desk filing. So that, and location are really the only criteria we have so hopefully we can find one soon!

2nd Post: Congressional Membership

2011-09-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

Today I just found out that I live in District 51, and my representative is Bob Filner. He is a democrat and sponsors over 58 different bills, some that interest me include:

Bill: H.RES.94 : Calling for the end of any violence and ill treatment perpetuated against Iranian citizens as well as the unconditional release of all political prisoners in Iran. This bill supports the Iranian's peoples endeavors towards democracy and human rights. I support Filner's view on this bill because I believe all should have their human rights, and I think it will help end the violence in Iran towards the political protesters who are trying to advocate change in their country. But continually get shot down by their government, and violently silenced.

First Post Sept 12, 2011

2011-09-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my volunteership blog! As of now I'm not sure what I will be doing, but some of the things that I am considering have to do with the environment sustainability, animals, or hunger, although I'm still open to anything. I still need to do some research to find my volunteership but I am hoping to find it soon. I imagine myself doing a lot of work with my hands, as I have never been one to enjoy working behind a computer and prefer hands on work. But I'm really excited to get started!