STANISLAUS CONNECTIONS

Working For Peace, Justice, and A Sustainable Environment

2002

A Modesto Peace/Life Center Publication

Peace Essay Contest

Peace Essay Contest 2002 results

Service is the rent you pay for room on this planet. — Shirley Chisholm

Since 1987 the Modesto Peace Life Center has sponsored an annual essay contest open to students in Stanislaus County grades 5-12. Peace Essay Contest 2002 received 980 entries, the most ever, 15 percent more than last year’s high.

For this year’s contest, participants each identified a need our community. After describing the situation as the writer saw it and explaining why it was important to take action on it, the student developed ideas to improve the situation and identified the skills and talents he or she had to contribute to the success of the project.

The Awards Reception will be held March 8th.

Division I (grades 11 and 12)

Division II (grades 9 and 10)

*The following school(s) submitted ten or more essays in this division and have been awarded a School Winner.

Division III (grades 7 and 8)

First Place: Daniel Matas, Roosevelt

Second Place: Rebekah Fischman, Teel

Third Place: BriAnne Sparkman, Roosevelt

Honorable Mentions: Karen Warner, Oakdale, and Jessica Dillion, Teel.

Finalists: Riley K. Mills, Blaker-Kinser; Jennifer Cadmus, Knights Ferry; Amanda Heinrichs, Cameron Lewis, Megan Lubinsky, and Nikole Makenzie, La Loma; Brandy Lederle, John Lokker, and Tim Shaw, Oakdale; Julie Blickenstaff and Victoria Lewis, Prescott; Amber Grimaldi, Sacred Heart; Crysta Carter and Pauline Young, Teel; and Megan Huffman, Ustach.

School Winners*: Riley K. Mills, Blaker-Kinser; Jennifer Cadmus, Knights Ferry; Nikole Makenzie, La Loma; Brandy Lederle, Oakdale; Daniel Matas, Roosevelt ; Jacob Martinez, Patterson; Victoria Lewis, Prescott ; Amber Grimaldi, Sacred Heart; Rebekah Fischman, Teel; Krista Yettman, Turlock; and Megan Huffman, Ustach.

Division IV (grades 5 and 6)

Thanks to our PEC judges and screeners: Brad Barker, Jerry Boudin, Stan Cunningham, Pam Franklin, Fred Herman, Harriet Hills. Elaine Harty, Ken Kline Smeltzer, Barbara Manrique, Susan Novak, Kaye Osborn, Myrtle Osner, Deborah Roberts, Sandy Sample, Judy Sly, Tim Smart, Mark Thompson, VaNee Van Vleck, Martin Zonligt, Bob Baucher, Jim Beggs, Peggy Casteneda, Jim Costello, Tina Driskill, Simeon Franklin, Elaine Gorman, Nancy Griggs, Barbara Ishida, John Lucas, Andi McGhee, Suzanne Meyer, Mike Monson, Dan Onorato, Judith Cochran Pirkle, Pat Roberts, Linda Scheller, Meg Scherfee, Ken Schroeder, Ruth Spencer, Julie TenBrink, Anita Young, Monique Kamille Capp, Phil Franklin.

Also thanks once again to all who helped make the Harvest Supper a success and other

Peace Essay Contest 2002 Committee: Margaret Barker, Indira Clark, Pam Franklin, Elaine Gorman, Suzanne Meyer, Judith Cochran Pirkle, Deborah Roberts, Sandy Sample.

A project of the Modesto Peace/Life Center 720-13th Street, Suite D - P. O. Box 134, Modesto, California 95354-0134 - 529-5750 - peaceessay@juno.com. Co-sponsored by the Modesto Junior College Literature and Language Arts Department

ACTION: Tax-deductible donations may be made to the Modesto Peace/Life Center, designated to the Peace Essay Contest.

Students against hunger
By KRISTA BUTTERFIELD
Johansen High School
Division 1, First Place

“Don’t say YOU don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo do Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

If everyone had the same attitude as H Jackson Brown, we would all be able to find the time to help our fellow human beings who are desperately in need of something to eat. We all manage to find the time to feed ourselves, but why can’t we set aside enough time to serve a meal to a poverty stricken family?

In 1995 a study by Tufts University showed that 10 to 30 million Americans have so little money that they cannot meet their monthly expenses nor buy enough food to live healthy, productive lives (Hunger in the United States). The Senate Office of Research released a report in 1987 entitled, Food Policies and Hunger in California, which estimated that at least 1.5 million state residents depended on extensive government and charitable assistance in order to feed themselves Since then the rates of poverty and numbers of unemployment have risen dramatically in California, increasing the number of people at risk of hunger (Disbrow). It’s time we give back to our community and become proactive in our efforts to end hunger

Marry high school students are concerned about fulfilling their community service requirements and filling up the gaping space in the dreaded community service section of college applications. In order to get people involved, you must give them an incentive. Organized community service hours is the remedy for the students’ lack of motivation, and what better incentive than already planned community service activities that will fulfill obligatory service hours.

I propose that a community service club be created for all high school students in Modesto that addresses the ubiquitous problem of hunger. This club will be called S.A. H. (Students Against Hunger) and will be composed of high school students who are willing to donate a little money and time that will have a significant impact. Each member will be required to pay yearly dues that will be used to help fund the purchase of food for club service activities. This club will meet once a week at a designated school at which time the members will take an active role in planning food drives and food distribution to homeless and impoverished people in the greater Modesto area. Once a month members can choose to serve dinner to needy people from the cafeteria of a high school or elementary school located in needy areas of Modesto. Opportunities would be planned for members to help during holiday seasons at facilities such as homeless shelters and churches.

Along with the yearly dues, members will participate in fundraisers to help with the purchase of supplies. Students would also contact local businesses in the Modesto area to solicit donations for their fight against hunger. Parents and teachers will be strongly encouraged to get involved, working alongside the student members of the club

In addition to benefiting the community by helping to alleviate hunger and the satisfying feeling one gets when doing a selfless act for someone else, members of the club will learn skills they can use later in life. Members will learn to organize people and activities, how to contact the public in order to receive donations, and budgeting skills. These skills can be utilized on the job as well as in everyday situations. Also, members may be more apt to choose a meaningful vocation and volunteer in their communities later in life.

Community service can be defined as a selfless act one does in order to bring about change. By making the time to perform selfless acts to change the lives of hungry people, tolerance and concern for this worldwide problem will be internalized. World peace can only be achieved when people around the world develop this same understanding, tolerance, and concern by donating a few hours of precious time to diminish the suffering of those in need.

Works Cited

Brown, Jackson H. http://www.gunnar.cc/quotes.html
Disbrow, Doris, Margen, Sheldon, and Neuhauser, Linda. http://www.ucop.edu/cprc/hunger.html. April 1995.
“Hunger in the United Sates.” http://www.kids.maine.org/hunfa.htm

Kids against trash
By LORRAINE LEWIS
Lakewood Elementary
Division 4, First Place

Have you ever been sight seeing in a city and been distracted by all the trash? Have you ever tried to pick up litter at a park and felt discouraged because there was so much of it? If we don’t find ways to keep our communities free from trash and litter, our growing population won’t have a clean or beautiful environment to enjoy.

Last summer I decided I wanted to do a small service project for our community. I was doing this to fulfill a service requirement for my church youth group. My mother and a friend of mine said they would like to help. My friend spent the night and we got up really early to pick up litter along a busy street. We had noticed that there was usually a lot of trash at this location and that it collected along a fence. The trash was mostly from a shopping center across the street that had a grocery store, gas station, fast food places, and other stores. We took several bags with us and it didn’t take long to fill them all. We felt proud of ourselves as we drove away admiring the clean fence line. We were discouraged when we noticed a few days later that it looked like we’d never even been there! That’s when I started really hating trash!

I have several friends that share my feelings about trash. We despise it! We have an idea that would help our community to fight this problem. First we want to start a group called, “Kids Against Trash” (KAT). The goals of our group would be to, 1) help educate people of all ages of the alternatives to littering, 2) demonstrate the benefits to not littering. 3) to help provide projects for communities members to participate in. We might even get businesses in our community to help out by donating trash bags or money for matching brightly colored team T-shirts with our group name and logo on it.

To educate our community, KAT could go around to schools and service groups and businesses doing skits to demonstrate how lazy people are when they don’t throw their own trash away. These skits could be funny but educational and could show people the other choices they could have besides trashing up our community. We could show pictures of the places after they’ve been cleaned up so people could see for themselves the differences. We could organize and publicize the service projects and invite schools and families and church groups to participate in Saturday clean-up projects. With our enthusiasm we will probably make people want to get involved.

Our project will not only help our community to look better and cleaner, but it will also help people to begin noticing how to actually prevent littering from happening in the first place. People will start seeing what they can do differently than what they have been doing in the past. It will also make people proud of their community and want to keep it looking nice.