When I was in high school, we had an annual food drive. I’m not sure when it started, but I do know I started participating my sophomore year. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve always liked video games (maybe not enough to remember Gandolf and Ganandorf are separate people but I still like games). Video games make you challenge yourself to beat your previous score, to do better than average, to excel and kill the bad guy. This is the kind of mindset I had when I went into this competition -Do the absolute best you can and nothing else will be tolerated. It was during Thanksgiving break when the food drive was taking place. As a child I was a Girl Scout, so my first thought on how to accomplish my goal was to run door to door and ask for canned goods. And I did just that. As soon as I got back from school I changed into warmer clothes, grabbed the little red wagon shoved in the back of the garage that hadn’t been used since I was 8 and went door to door with a smile on my face, asking for canned goods for my school’s food drive. Some people gave me nothing or didn’t answer, but more often than naught my neighbors were very accommodating. One old man even let me raid his pantry for anything he couldn’t eat because of his restricted diet. I lived in Ohio, so the weather was very much like here with wind and rain and cold. It was always cold, and there was little sun, but I didn’t give up, my gamer mentality wouldn’t let me just walk away from the challenge.
The first day I amassed about 60 cans and thought that was amazing! I was overjoyed. For the next five or six days after school hours and during my Thanksgiving break I ran around my entire neighborhood asking for canned goods. By the time it came to turn my cans in I had gathered more than 300 non perishable foods and cans from my neighborhood, and everyone was amazed at what I had done. And every year after that I continued to run around during Thanksgiving, asking for canned goods, trying to do better than the last day, better than the last year. And each year I did do better, Junior year by 50 more cans, and my Senior year I gathers more than 400. My neighbors began to expect me and my friends would be amazed every year, and the service director extremely pleased. I know I didn’t kill the big boss World Hunger, but I did managed to do some damage to the area boss Local Hunger. I also think I gained +2 agility, after all that running around with a wagon full of cans in tow.
I really like how you related the food drive to something you liked doing, like video games. The comparison throughout the whole blog helped me relate back to the beginning. I also like how it wasn't just a blog that seemed like you were just talking. It turned into a story. The more I read the more I couldn't wait to get to the end to find out how many cans you ended up collecting. You should consider being a writer. Also, what level of girl scouts did you get to? I was a girl scout too but got tired of all they taught us was table manners and cooking. It was like they wanted us all to grow up to be homemakers. So I quickly ended that. Anyway, it was very enjoyable to read this.
ReplyDeleteHaha I'm glad you liked it! I try really hard to make it seem interesting, and I've always had a knack for story telling. I actually wanted to be a writer when I was younger, and I still dabble in writing, but I have so many stories floating in my head that I can never sit down and finish one, so writing isn't really my avenue. But I am a film major, so I hope I can bring my stories out through action and scenes where I have trouble with words.
ReplyDeleteAs for GS I quit after 8th grade. (I had actually been begging my mother since 6th grade to stop but she thought I was learning valuable things through GS...) And I didn't have as many homemaker activities as I did arts and crafts/occupy the children things...But I'm really glad this was enjoyable! :D
I had a similar competition like this at my high school! Except instead of our school grades competing against each other like some schools do, we had a city basketball tournament and each of the four schools in the tournament competed against each other for the “Spirit of Giving” award. There wasn’t a prize or anything that the school would get if they won this, but all the schools just wanted bragging rights and oh man we were all so competitive with the other schools. I’m positive that people from my school went door to door just like you did whenever the city tournament would come around. However, whenever we would have just inter school food drives we would never raise as much canned food as we would for this city tournament. It is interesting how the concept of competitiveness could really drive the kids that went to my school to do more than they normally would.
ReplyDeleteVideo games and service, it is a nice combination. And it is very interesting that you treated the new challenges as the bosses in the game and try as hard as possible to win the battle. But in the real life, you can feel the raining and cold wind in Ohio and the hunger is not something based on imagination. Everything is real. Since reality is a little bit brutal, so use something from imagine world would be nice to enhance your encourage.
ReplyDeleteI think it is not just service like the video game; the whole world is like a video game. Well actually the video game is coming from the reality. But in real life, that battle against all the hardships are not that easy to conquer. But the spirit from the Video game should be helpful and you offer a great example.
I think that doing service related to things you enjoy is very important in being successful. Anyone can knock out 30 hours, but some might dread doing the service. I like how you incorporated your interests into the service and I'm sure that kept things much more interesting to you. I also have done a few food drives and they especially make me feel good after I do them. Food is a necessity, and it's nice seeing the good you are doing for people in a hands-on manner.
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