Upon seeing the
initial assessment of organizations when we arrived in class on Tuesday, I was
surprised to see that so many great organizations only received one vote or two
votes. Granted, I probably should have realized this would happen due to the
extreme support for several organizations voiced on this blog. I feel that when
several people spoke about certain organizations, others read the blogs and
realized that these people brought up good points about organizations that they
may have over looked. Were you driven to initially pick organizations due to
the way they were presented by our classmates? I believe that this phenomenon
also occurred during class on Tuesday.
Looking at the 6 finalists, almost all of them received more votes than during the initial assessment. This is especially obvious for the Hope Dispensary and the Soup and Sandwich Program. When people spoke about some of the organizations in class, they may have given classmates different views on the organizations that they did not see while assessing the applications. I really like both of these organizations and I am happy that many people see that the services these organizations provide are worthwhile. One aspect of these organizations that I especially enjoy is their focus on basic needs. Although it’s unlikely that anyone in Broome County is starving to death, the Soup and Sandwich Program does provide relief of hunger for at least one day a week, which allows the people who participate in this program to use their money on different features of their life. This is also a reason I find the Boys and Girls Club awesome as well. They provide free dinner for all those involved with the program. The Hope Dispensary also provides relief by way of helping to pay for prescriptions. Health is an aspect of life that many take for granted and I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to be so financially unstable that it is difficult to pay for medication needed.
Thinking about basic needs brought me back to the beginning of the year and the discussions we had as a class in regards to donating towards causes that focused on basic needs or on causes that focus on education and various other aspects of life that develop the person as whole. Although this is an old topic, I often think of it and I always feel caught between two fences. There are still people in this world that are starving and really sick with diseases that are easy to cure. It’s so hard to think about education and the arts when the basic needs of others are not being met. This is one reason that I like organizations that work on basic needs and learning at the same time. One of my favorite organizations that does this is Partners in Health, especially the branch in Haiti (http://www.pih.org/country/haiti). They help to start off people by teaching members of the community how to be accompagnateurs. After training, these individuals help to service the medical needs of many in the community by providing them with care and daily surveillance. By teaching the people of Haiti medical techniques, the need for tons of aid decreases because they are learning how to be self-sufficient. There are also many programs that help to teach people how to farm and provide nourishment for themselves. These programs are based around the philosophical quote “You give a man a fish he eats for a day. You teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime”. Another Haiti based non-profit that focuses on this is the new organization Love Thy Neighbor (http://theadvocate.com/features/people/4999622-123/growing-haiti). This organization teaches school children how to grow food and care for the land, so they can slow or end the cycle of poverty in Haiti.
Looking at the 6 finalists, almost all of them received more votes than during the initial assessment. This is especially obvious for the Hope Dispensary and the Soup and Sandwich Program. When people spoke about some of the organizations in class, they may have given classmates different views on the organizations that they did not see while assessing the applications. I really like both of these organizations and I am happy that many people see that the services these organizations provide are worthwhile. One aspect of these organizations that I especially enjoy is their focus on basic needs. Although it’s unlikely that anyone in Broome County is starving to death, the Soup and Sandwich Program does provide relief of hunger for at least one day a week, which allows the people who participate in this program to use their money on different features of their life. This is also a reason I find the Boys and Girls Club awesome as well. They provide free dinner for all those involved with the program. The Hope Dispensary also provides relief by way of helping to pay for prescriptions. Health is an aspect of life that many take for granted and I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to be so financially unstable that it is difficult to pay for medication needed.
Thinking about basic needs brought me back to the beginning of the year and the discussions we had as a class in regards to donating towards causes that focused on basic needs or on causes that focus on education and various other aspects of life that develop the person as whole. Although this is an old topic, I often think of it and I always feel caught between two fences. There are still people in this world that are starving and really sick with diseases that are easy to cure. It’s so hard to think about education and the arts when the basic needs of others are not being met. This is one reason that I like organizations that work on basic needs and learning at the same time. One of my favorite organizations that does this is Partners in Health, especially the branch in Haiti (http://www.pih.org/country/haiti). They help to start off people by teaching members of the community how to be accompagnateurs. After training, these individuals help to service the medical needs of many in the community by providing them with care and daily surveillance. By teaching the people of Haiti medical techniques, the need for tons of aid decreases because they are learning how to be self-sufficient. There are also many programs that help to teach people how to farm and provide nourishment for themselves. These programs are based around the philosophical quote “You give a man a fish he eats for a day. You teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime”. Another Haiti based non-profit that focuses on this is the new organization Love Thy Neighbor (http://theadvocate.com/features/people/4999622-123/growing-haiti). This organization teaches school children how to grow food and care for the land, so they can slow or end the cycle of poverty in Haiti.
In Broome County, the situation
is very different in comparison to Haiti. Realistically, having the poor of
Broome County cultivate their own food and create their own health system is
ridiculous and probably would cause more harm than good, but it’s still
important to realize that Broome County is still a place where some go hungry
before bedtime and some are too poor to pay for prescriptions. In order for
Broome County to eliminate poverty in the area, educational and basic need
organizations need to be supported because a healthy body coincides with a
healthy mind and a healthy mind can only grow through education.
Getting back to the finalists, I would like to conclude that even though I am
very into basic need organizations, I was sad to see some educational
organizations cut. I really found the Discovery Center to be a wonderful
organization and I though the Bee Exhibit was a really awesome learning
opportunity. I didn’t realize it was going to be this hard to let go of some
organizations, but unfortunately there is only $10,000 and there is no way that
we can help all of the organizations no matter how much we would like to. What
organizations did you find hard to let go of? Even if a favorite of yours was
cut, did any of the organizations that made the finals have a similar mission
to your favorite? Even though we have only 6 finalists left, I think there
are much harder decisions that need to be made in the upcoming weeks and I hope
that as a class, we will make informed decisions after the site visits and the
presentations from the organizations.
Caileigh, your last paragraph really stuck out to me. I too was sad to see some of the organizations go. All year we have been talking as a class about our educational values, yet only half of the finalist organizations have an educational mission. I am a bit surprised. I too was in support of The Discover Center; an organization that provides a lot of hands-on education to young children. I was really excited to be able to contribute to the Bee exhibit, especially since they were able to lay out the exact amount of money that they needed for it; $2500. Something that we could have covered COMPLETELY. Some of the organizations that we have narrowed down to have not laid out for us the amount that they need to complete a project or make a large enough contribution that would have an impact. Definitely a question that I would like to ask each organization.
ReplyDeleteIt boggles my mind that you said "but unfortunately we only have $10,000." The entire semester we have been very optimistic about the amount of money that we have, since none of us have ever had this much money to give away. Yet now that we have begun to choose organizations, this $10,000 does not feel like nearly enough! Crazy huh?!?!
Caliegh, I’m glad to know I am not the only one who has been struggling with the debate of basic needs v. cultural needs. I also think about it a lot, and have found myself debating them week after week. I’ll admit, I skimmed through applications of organizations supporting arts and the environment because I did not consider these to be basic needs. I told myself that it was important to pick organizations that addressed hunger, poverty, or education first. Then, after reading blog posts or listening to Tuesday’s discussion, I started to feel badly about my process of elimination. Who am I to say that these needs are less important to Broome County’s population than others? It wasn’t until after Tuesday’s discussion that I gave the Soup and Sandwich program a second thought… and after hearing everyone’s passionate arguments I gave them my vote. I guess that hearing other people’s point of views really got me thinking about fulfilling needs and meeting tangible goals.
ReplyDeleteHannah, you bring up a great point about the amount of money we have. Now that it is time to start making tough decisions, I feel like we don’t have enough money. We read so many applications where there were finite amounts of dollars mentioned, $2500 here, $1,000 there to help reach a simple goal for an organization and I wanted to help them all. It is crazy how my perspective has completely changed, now I think we don’t have enough money at all! I guess the best thing we can do as a class, is decide if we want to help multiple organizations with little donations, or one or 2 organizations with larger donations. This is another question we have debated a lot, which is a better impact? I guess now is the time to answer those difficult questions.
While I had not considered the words "basic needs" when making my decision, it seems that that most certainly served as a driving force in my and in our class' final decision. Interestingly enough, not a single person in class made an argument for why an arts organization should be a finalist, not even the students who listed one in their list of favorites (myself included). While the arts are undoubtedly important, when allotted a limited amount of money to give away there a greater things an individual needs in order to survive. I think a major reason why organizations like the Hope Dispensary received higher votes after our class discussion is because students placed a smaller emphasis on how poor/great their application was, and placed a greater emphasis on the services they provided to the community. When reviewing applications, I think many students based their decisions on how lengthy/short responses were, the number of grammatical and spelling errors found, and the amount of effort that seemed to be put into the application. When speaking about the Hope Dispensary, however, none of those things seemed to matter. There are individuals in dire need of prescription medication that may save their lives, so it matters not how strong an application is if the organization is successfully meeting a community need. With that said, I am interested in hearing these organizations present to our class because I expect many of them to do a great job. Ultimately, each of the organizations have a great mission and serve a important community need, so I wonder what criteria we will use to make our decisions. Without the applications in front of us, I expect this process to become ten times more difficult.
DeleteEven though the Boys & Girls Club made it to the list of finalists, I personally left it out of my submission of the top 5. It was a hard choice, but at the end of the day, I’m still happy with my decision. Like we discussed in class, I basically felt like the Boys & Girls Club is a very well known, big organization that would have no trouble finding funding from outside sources. On the other hand, I believe the Urban League is not as financial stable. Since the Boys & Girls Club and the Urban League are similar organizations, I figured the Urban League was an organization that needed the money more.
ReplyDeleteMoving past the 6 finalists, now, will be more difficult. It was a difficult decision to get it down this far and it will only get harder from here. However at the end of the day, any of the organizations which we give to will be good organizations. I am not upset by any of the finalist organizations because at the end of the day, I know the money is going to help people.
However, I do think our decision will ultimately become harder as we actually hear organizations present in front of the class. To read something is different than hearing something on a personal level. I am sure that anecdotes will be more impactful in person. Meeting the organizations in class is definitely something that I look forward to it.
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ReplyDeleteHi Caileigh,
ReplyDeleteI like your post very much because you bring back into play some of the things we discussed very early on in the semester. I believe that in some ways I have stopped thinking about many of these topics since we are now in the middle of our decision phase. However, I think it is very important that we bring back into play many of the things that we learned from the three books we read so early on. The give-a-man-a-fish situation was a common theme in many of our discussions, specifically regarding the Salwen family. You bring it up in context of the several organizations you are passionate about and I enjoyed hearing about the work they do. I think we should also apply this idea to many of the organizations we have deemed finalists. We should discuss and analyze each finalist individually and try to measure the extent to which they “teach their target demographic to fish”. Also, I would be interested to hear how our classmates view this idea as a measurement of our finalists. Does everyone feel that the organization that does so most effectively is therefore the most deserving of our donation?
On a separate note, you briefly talk about those organizations that were let go. I found it very interesting that two of the organizations that initially were very low on the list found their way to the final round. In retrospect, I wish that we took a little more time individually talking about organizations that we were closely passionate about, even if they were not in the extremely low range of 1-3 votes. Sometimes a personal perspective is enough to jar new thoughts on an organization, as we saw with Soup and Sandwich and Hope Dispensary. I believe it was your idea to give those passionate about certain organizations the opportunity to speak. I wish more people took the opportunity to do so, since there must have been a reason that those organizations got any votes to begin with. However, I am very happy with the organizations we have and am very excited to learn more about them through site visits and class visitors.
Caileigh, I really enjoyed the different points and topics you brought up. The most interesting point you had was the one about how we picked organizations due to people speaking up for them. It seemed that a personal plea about a couple organizations caused them to be finalists when in the initial votes they weren’t even close to that. People weren’t able to remember that there must have been a reason they weren’t chosen due to their application. Maybe unclear results as to the money they will provide or declining funds, I’m not sure. I honestly didn’t remember what any of the specific applications said when we were discussing them in class. I am not saying that classmate’s opinions shouldn’t be heard, but in choosing our finalists, the minimal time we had to discuss and evaluate caused our decision to be based largely on emotions. As we have discussed in class, this is a huge part of giving, but I feel like in choosing the finalists we didn’t base our decisions off of many facts since we didn’t have much time to go back to the applications.
ReplyDeleteWith that, I would like to warn everybody when the representatives from different organizations come in. I am sure all of them will throw out incredible success stories and some will be more persuasive than others. However, we need to keep in mind that just because somebody is an effective speaker it doesn’t mean that his or her organization is any better. We need to pay attention to what they are saying, how our money will be used, and all of the questions that Eliza posted in her blog post. It is very easy to get caught up in a story, and with the $10,000 we need to take our responsibility of giving it away seriously.
Like you, I was sad to see some of the educational organizations cut because it was the issue area that came up most often throughout the semester. I hope we choose at least a couple of the organizations we actually give the money to those with an educational focus. Regardless, I hope we can all come to a consensus that allows for most of our class to be satisfied.