Community Service (5hrs)

Monday the 21^st of May, I went to finish my community service hours in Alden Long Grove Rehabilitation and Health Care Center.  Basically what Alden is, is a house of rehabilitation and a elderly care center.  It does many things from helping someone into rehab to taking care of those who can’t take care of themselves anymore.  The reason I went there was because a friend of mine works there and it would be nicer giving back for those who gave so much to us.  At first, I thought I was going to work with the older people and help them around.  I thought I would play games, keep them company, and do whatever they needed me to do.  I was fine with it, but later on I figured out I’d work in the rehab center.  Right away I got a little scared.  What would that be like?  What if I get attacked or something like that?  I got a little scared but I needed to help those people so I went for it.  When I got there I was told to go down the other side of the building because the other side was the rehab center.  I went and met with the nurses to figure what I needed to do.  They told me that basically I would help the patients with their medicine, talk to them a little, and do some activities they had planned.  It was a great experience.  I met this one guy named Mark who had a tough story with drugs.   Over all, I learned a lot that day.  It was an experience I will never forget and would like people to experience it to.. Mark’s story gave me many heads up to the future and taught me an important lesson about drugs.

It is jail time!

Last week we watched a movie about this guy who stayed 30 days in jail.  He didn’t do anything wrong.  He didn’t break the law.  He did his time to see how jails worked in the United States.  Throughout the movie, we met many different people who were in jail for different reasons.  A lot of them are there because of drugs issues and some because of mental issues.  It seemed like these people shouldn’t be in jail, but they should be in hospitals or in recovery center.  Society gave up on them long ago.  Instead of sending them for help, they sent them to a locked room and kept them there for the rest of their lives.  No second chance.  No nothing.  They were forced there.  As a result, many other people with same issues were getting in trouble because they were troubled themselves.  They didn’t know any better and did the things they did because they got no help from anyone. As a result a lot of jails are overcrowding over the years.  In my opinion I think real criminals should be in jail.  Not people whom we should be helping.  Another problem with jails in America is the system itself.  It is clearly a politic manipulation and it is not working.  2/3 of the people who get out of jail return to jail.  You have a higher chance of going back in there than staying clean and out of trouble.  That ties back to the social problem we have.  A lot of the people were sent there because of mental or drug problems.  They spend a long part of their lives locked up and once they get out, they don’t know how to live any other place.  They get in trouble and go right back in again.  Also, very little jails have an after jail programs that help ex-cons stay out of trouble.  I think, the way of salving the system problem is by starting a whole new system.  With less corruption and maybe helping those who are being punished now.

Social Class

            Most of us usually never hang out with people from different social class than us.  We stay around our whole lives or we move to different areas much like the area we live in now.  We don’t get an opportunity to see what is like to be different than our friends.  We don’t know what’s like to have a complete different life than the life we have now.  Most people that live around us earn more than the national income average.  We also don’t go out of our way to meet other people from a low-income family.  That makes people stay where they are in the social class.  People don’t try to move up because they don’t know how too.  My family however, took a different rout.  My grandpa did have a lot of money but my dad tried to make it on his own.  As a result, I didn’t grow in a great place like this.  I lived in many worst circumstances.  I used to hang out with people that literally had nothing.  They struggled so much just to get through the day.  I think that was a great experience to me.  I learned what it was like to have very little money.  I met people who wanted to build up like my dad did but had no opportunity to.  I believe if people didn’t care what social class they were on, and hung out with each other, there would be a great increase in the number of people who jumped out the bottom class to maybe middle class and higher.