Throughout my time in Trep Studio I have accomplished many things, and one of the biggest accomplishments that I have had so far is my Change Maker Story which will be posted below. As my group and I go through the semester and overcome certain challenges like: attempting to teach a non-tech nerd code (me), getting to the point of being able to work efficiently together, and the most important out of all of our accomplishments would be our ability to communicate with one another. In a result of our accomplishments I feel as if we have created a pretty respectful product. |
Change Maker Story Steps 1-8
Step 1A:
· Collecting stuffed animals for cancer patients:
In 5th grade my friend Megan and I were assigned a project that would impact someone’s life and we decided to collect stuffed animals from people and then donate them a few weeks later. We started by posting an ad on Craigslist asking for any unwanted stuffed animals that were in good condition from a non-smoking environment. As people contacted us from our ad we simply asked them to leave the stuffed animals outside of their house in a water proof container on the day that we were going to come by and pick them up. Throughout the few weeks we collected hundreds of stuffed animals and we donated most of them; some of the stuffed animals couldn’t have been donated due to cosmetic flaws or smoke. Once we got all the stuffed animals that we could get we made an appointment to drop them all of at the cancer center downtown, when we got there I remember the nurses and staff being impressed that two girls of such a young age were taking the time to get presents for the cancer patients.
· Feeding the homeless downtown with the church:
To begin with I do not attend church, but however my grandparents do and every Sunday the pastor and his wife take a good group of people downtown (only in the winter months) to feed the homeless. All of us have a food handler permit and we make the food from home and go downtown after the service is over to hand it out to those who show up. Not only do we hand out food but we also hand out scarfs, gloves, socks, and even sometimes blankets. We all purchase the food and clothing items with our own money or we donate the clothes that we simply just don’t wear anymore. When we get downtown there is always more and more people waiting in line to get some warm food and every single one of them is thankful for what we do. Some of the homeless that show up I know by name now and it is quite sad of the situation that they are going through but they’re all good people and just need a little bit of help.
Step 1B:
· The challenge I hope to address is the importance of helping others
· Hook:
When I was in 5th grade we had a final project due at the end of the year that had to deal with helping the community in any way. Of course most kids donated their clothes to charities around Spokane but my partner and I wanted to do something different than the others. We actually wanted to make a difference.
The Challenge
· We gained empathy for the problem by visiting and talking to some cancer patients and some of the nurses to get a better understanding on how the typical day is for a patient who is staying in the hospital for a long period of time. What treatments they have to go through, and what happens after the treatment for the kids in the cancer ward. It has impacted the lives of the people around me because it has made me more willing to donate my money and time to those in need.
· There is a need for my solution because cancer patients are kind of forgotten by those who haven’t had close relations with cancer itself. No one really understands what they go through, yes it seems rough no matter what, but if you’re not around it you don’t understand how uncomfortable it is to be around a child who is more thankful for her life than you are because you’re not dying of cancer. The deeper social problem is that people think donating just one dollar when you’re at the grocery store is enough, yes it helps but everyone can do much more and it’s the laziness and the selfishness of those don’t help others that causes these problems.
· The political climate of cancer is “it sucks they’re dying - donate a dollar to scientists to hope for a cure” when you can be making a child’s day brighter by donating a teddy bear instead of feeding the governments cancer beast.
The Big Idea
· My solution is to get a group together, anyone of any age and get them to go out and buy teddy bears or even donate ones they don’t want anymore and give them to a cancer patient and actually get to know them. Build a relationship with one (or multiple) kid(s).
· I got to my solution by thinking what I would like from someone if I was in the hospital having to get needles shoved everywhere and not knowing if my cancer is either going to get worse suddenly and kills me.
· What’s unique about my solution is that I would have my group actually build a relationship with the patients instead of having them get a teddy bear from a complete stranger. I’m seeing the solution to this problem in a new light because I know what cancer does and not everyone always has the comfort of a friend or family member being there to comfort them during an operation/treatment.
The How to
· Currently my solution is in the ideation phase
· My solution identifies the problem because we will actually build a relationship with the patients and donate our time to make their days better. A good scenario to demonstrate this would be the time we donated all of the stuffed animals to the nurses to hand out, they were happy that we had done something so nice but we could have done more and became friends with some of the patients.
· The most challenging would be getting enough stuffed animals that are in good enough condition for someone with cancer because they’re immune systems aren’t working very well they can’t have any smoke of damage done to them or else it could cause further complications. We worked through those problems by personally going through and checking each stuffed animal. Including sniffing for any abnormal smells.
· We are directly involving the people directly affected by the problem by becoming friends with the patients, nurses, and also asking our community members/friends to get involved with our cause to help out or donate money.
· So far the only disagreement we have had with our solution is that one of my fellow students didn’t want become friends with someone who was dying because s/he doesn’t want to get too attached to the patient and then have them die. I addressed them by letting them know I understand what they mean but I would still like them to be involved in the stuffed animal process if they still wished to be part of our group.
The Impact
· I cannot provide any data of my impact at the moment because we did not record anything other than the amount of stuffed animals donated to the hospital.
The Call to Action
· My audience can donate their time and money to the cause so we can get more people on board.
· My plans and visions for the future of this group is to make it grow to a national scale, and quite possibly global. The world of cancer would be a little bit easier for those infected if they have another friend by their side while they battle through this journey.
· The broader significance of my venture is just making kids with cancer a little happier than they are, after all they are just kids and deserve to have a pleasant childhood while it lasts.
· My call to action is:
o Always lend a smile and a helping hand those in need of it. You can brighten their day by doing something as simple as giving them your time.
Step 2:
· Students who want to help others or in need of community service hours for graduation is my key audience… maybe families who have a child who has or had cancer
· Also in need of some outside funding, so we can pair with blankets for kemo from mt Spokane high school and fundraise together
Step 3:
· I’m telling my story because I want to more people to interact with kids with cancer
Step 4:
· My story will be an impact story
Step 5:
Call to Action
· I want people to share my story with their network, become a supporter of my cause and volunteer, or donate to my cause.
Step 6:
· The best medium to spread the word of my cause would be articles that are linked to social media websites and can be shared (i.e. Facebook)
Step 7:
· I want to share my story through my writing
· Through my writing I want to share my perspective, the patients perspective, and also the perspective of those in my group
· The overall tone of my story is supposed to be catching and motivating for people to get up and do something to help others
· Through different parts of my story I want my audience to feel touched, angry, obligated, and motivated
Change Maker Story
Caitlyn Miller 2015
When I was in 5th grade our class had a final project due at the end of the year that had to deal with helping the community in any way. Of course most kids donated their clothes to charities around Spokane but my partner and I wanted to do something different than the others. We actually wanted to make a difference. As we began to do some research of all the opportunities we had to donate our time to none of them spiked our interest, until we started to think of cancer patients.
Now at first we honestly had no idea what to do to help improve the hospital life of cancer patients, we figured they’d all be super bitter or knocked out from pain medications. After long deliberation with one another and basically getting nowhere with our project we called the hospital and asked what would be good to give to the patients that would make a difference in their stay, and she replied stuffed animals. To our amazement after they have to go through a treatment or shots they have this thing called the prize bucket; which is where they keep a bunch of toys and stuffed animals for the kids to dig through and choose one of their liking. We started with the original idea of just getting little stuffed animals so they could put it into the chest for the children, but then we started thinking that we could do so much more than just that.
As 11 year olds at City School we had no idea how to start so we went to the teachers for some help in spreading the word that we needed stuffed animals to donate to the children in the cancer center. Our English teacher helped us set up an ad onto Craigslist but told us not to get our hopes up about getting anything because people don’t usually just give away stuffed animals. Boy was she wrong – over the next couple weeks we have gotten dozen of emails telling us that they had tons of stuffed animals that they would love for us to pick up. To our surprise most of those who came to us were very cooperative and we started to set up a schedule to pick up all the stuffed animals. My loving mother drove us all around Spokane to pick up these stuffed animals from people’s houses as we made our way back to my parents place we then made our corporate office my bedroom of course (my room was pretty awesome). When we were back to my parent’s house we got all the stuffed animals out of their containers and started sorting them, many were damaged and most smelled of smoke.; obviously due to the patients immune systems focusing on the cancer they cannot risk getting any other kind of illness so we ended up giving around half of the stuffed animals to Goodwill in the end. Although we had to donate around half of the stuffed animals to Goodwill and other thrift shops around town we still had around 100 stuffed seals, teddy bears, giraffes, everything to give to the children at the hospital. The nurses and staff were over joyed that two young girls were taking the time to collect stuffed animals and give them to the children who need something to hold onto while they’re getting treatments done.
Now that I reflect back onto all the good my partner and I had done with the stuffed animals, I believe that I could have donated more than I had already donated to begin with. With that note this is where I am at currently with my stuffed animal cause:
I find that there is a huge need for people to donate their time to these kids who are suffering from cancer because it can help make their days happier and less painful than they were before. Although it is not a whole lot, but just visiting the children once a week will at least give them something to look forward to. Due to the whole stigma of cancer those who know of the troubles of this disease tend to be more wary, and I know from personal experience that it feels great donating that one extra dollar with your bill at Alberstons or FredMyers; it actual feels like you are making a huge difference. But are you really? Do you know where your money is actually going? How much effect does you measly dollar make on these kids? These are some of the questions that ran through my head as I was reflecting back onto my stuffed animal donation. This is why I want to do so much more for these children.
In order to more, I have this idea. Now it may be crazy but I think it will at least make the kids happy and to be honest, is that not what we all want? They are children and some are the same age as me and I find it quite unfair that they are rudely judged for having cancer. I want to be a friend to them, be there for them, and make them happy. My idea is that with my original idea of donating stuffed animals a group begins to gather, anyone of any age and being is more than welcome to join; our plan is to go out and get more stuffed teddy bears, koalas, zebras, hippos… whatever stuffed animals you yourself find fit. Then we go out to our local hospitals and donate not only our time but also our stuffed animals to the children with cancer (or any other fatal condition). I thought of the idea of donating our time to make a relationship with these children after having some experiences with friends in the hospital. It made me think, what about the kids who don’t have friends to come visit them? I want to change that. No one, especially a child deserves to be alone in a hospital alone getting needles jabbed into them. I know for a fact that no one wants to be alone on his or her deathbed.
As of right now I do not have a group going nor do I have a name for this so called group, but together we can change that and begin changing the lives of the children that are suffering from these horrendous diseases. The more and more I think about that group project my friend and I had done in fifth grade really makes me wish that I had done more for them. Having a group visit different patients throughout the week and give them random gifts I very achievable, but the biggest obstacle we would have as a group would be getting enough stuffed animals for the kids and of course, funding. We can pay for most of the stuffed animals but I assume that we will eventually reach the set limit we have for spending. I strongly encourage anyone in the community if that may be nurses, firemen, police officers, even stay at home moms to get involved with out movement to make a difference. Become friends with them. Shove them love. Just let these children know that we care and they aren’t alone in the big scary world of cancer. I’m sharing my story and my plans for the future of this movement to make a difference in these kids lives and as we all know, kids love interaction – just someone to talk to. Just by being there for the children with cancer will make they’re fight and journey easier on them. If you are interested in our movement please begin the same movement in your town or city, and all you have to do is use our name and spread to the word to your friends and family.
Lets make this a global act so please always lend a smile and a helping hand to those in need of it. You can brighten their day by doing the simple act of caring.
Step 1A:
· Collecting stuffed animals for cancer patients:
In 5th grade my friend Megan and I were assigned a project that would impact someone’s life and we decided to collect stuffed animals from people and then donate them a few weeks later. We started by posting an ad on Craigslist asking for any unwanted stuffed animals that were in good condition from a non-smoking environment. As people contacted us from our ad we simply asked them to leave the stuffed animals outside of their house in a water proof container on the day that we were going to come by and pick them up. Throughout the few weeks we collected hundreds of stuffed animals and we donated most of them; some of the stuffed animals couldn’t have been donated due to cosmetic flaws or smoke. Once we got all the stuffed animals that we could get we made an appointment to drop them all of at the cancer center downtown, when we got there I remember the nurses and staff being impressed that two girls of such a young age were taking the time to get presents for the cancer patients.
· Feeding the homeless downtown with the church:
To begin with I do not attend church, but however my grandparents do and every Sunday the pastor and his wife take a good group of people downtown (only in the winter months) to feed the homeless. All of us have a food handler permit and we make the food from home and go downtown after the service is over to hand it out to those who show up. Not only do we hand out food but we also hand out scarfs, gloves, socks, and even sometimes blankets. We all purchase the food and clothing items with our own money or we donate the clothes that we simply just don’t wear anymore. When we get downtown there is always more and more people waiting in line to get some warm food and every single one of them is thankful for what we do. Some of the homeless that show up I know by name now and it is quite sad of the situation that they are going through but they’re all good people and just need a little bit of help.
Step 1B:
· The challenge I hope to address is the importance of helping others
· Hook:
When I was in 5th grade we had a final project due at the end of the year that had to deal with helping the community in any way. Of course most kids donated their clothes to charities around Spokane but my partner and I wanted to do something different than the others. We actually wanted to make a difference.
The Challenge
· We gained empathy for the problem by visiting and talking to some cancer patients and some of the nurses to get a better understanding on how the typical day is for a patient who is staying in the hospital for a long period of time. What treatments they have to go through, and what happens after the treatment for the kids in the cancer ward. It has impacted the lives of the people around me because it has made me more willing to donate my money and time to those in need.
· There is a need for my solution because cancer patients are kind of forgotten by those who haven’t had close relations with cancer itself. No one really understands what they go through, yes it seems rough no matter what, but if you’re not around it you don’t understand how uncomfortable it is to be around a child who is more thankful for her life than you are because you’re not dying of cancer. The deeper social problem is that people think donating just one dollar when you’re at the grocery store is enough, yes it helps but everyone can do much more and it’s the laziness and the selfishness of those don’t help others that causes these problems.
· The political climate of cancer is “it sucks they’re dying - donate a dollar to scientists to hope for a cure” when you can be making a child’s day brighter by donating a teddy bear instead of feeding the governments cancer beast.
The Big Idea
· My solution is to get a group together, anyone of any age and get them to go out and buy teddy bears or even donate ones they don’t want anymore and give them to a cancer patient and actually get to know them. Build a relationship with one (or multiple) kid(s).
· I got to my solution by thinking what I would like from someone if I was in the hospital having to get needles shoved everywhere and not knowing if my cancer is either going to get worse suddenly and kills me.
· What’s unique about my solution is that I would have my group actually build a relationship with the patients instead of having them get a teddy bear from a complete stranger. I’m seeing the solution to this problem in a new light because I know what cancer does and not everyone always has the comfort of a friend or family member being there to comfort them during an operation/treatment.
The How to
· Currently my solution is in the ideation phase
· My solution identifies the problem because we will actually build a relationship with the patients and donate our time to make their days better. A good scenario to demonstrate this would be the time we donated all of the stuffed animals to the nurses to hand out, they were happy that we had done something so nice but we could have done more and became friends with some of the patients.
· The most challenging would be getting enough stuffed animals that are in good enough condition for someone with cancer because they’re immune systems aren’t working very well they can’t have any smoke of damage done to them or else it could cause further complications. We worked through those problems by personally going through and checking each stuffed animal. Including sniffing for any abnormal smells.
· We are directly involving the people directly affected by the problem by becoming friends with the patients, nurses, and also asking our community members/friends to get involved with our cause to help out or donate money.
· So far the only disagreement we have had with our solution is that one of my fellow students didn’t want become friends with someone who was dying because s/he doesn’t want to get too attached to the patient and then have them die. I addressed them by letting them know I understand what they mean but I would still like them to be involved in the stuffed animal process if they still wished to be part of our group.
The Impact
· I cannot provide any data of my impact at the moment because we did not record anything other than the amount of stuffed animals donated to the hospital.
The Call to Action
· My audience can donate their time and money to the cause so we can get more people on board.
· My plans and visions for the future of this group is to make it grow to a national scale, and quite possibly global. The world of cancer would be a little bit easier for those infected if they have another friend by their side while they battle through this journey.
· The broader significance of my venture is just making kids with cancer a little happier than they are, after all they are just kids and deserve to have a pleasant childhood while it lasts.
· My call to action is:
o Always lend a smile and a helping hand those in need of it. You can brighten their day by doing something as simple as giving them your time.
Step 2:
· Students who want to help others or in need of community service hours for graduation is my key audience… maybe families who have a child who has or had cancer
· Also in need of some outside funding, so we can pair with blankets for kemo from mt Spokane high school and fundraise together
Step 3:
· I’m telling my story because I want to more people to interact with kids with cancer
Step 4:
· My story will be an impact story
Step 5:
Call to Action
· I want people to share my story with their network, become a supporter of my cause and volunteer, or donate to my cause.
Step 6:
· The best medium to spread the word of my cause would be articles that are linked to social media websites and can be shared (i.e. Facebook)
Step 7:
· I want to share my story through my writing
· Through my writing I want to share my perspective, the patients perspective, and also the perspective of those in my group
· The overall tone of my story is supposed to be catching and motivating for people to get up and do something to help others
· Through different parts of my story I want my audience to feel touched, angry, obligated, and motivated
Change Maker Story
Caitlyn Miller 2015
When I was in 5th grade our class had a final project due at the end of the year that had to deal with helping the community in any way. Of course most kids donated their clothes to charities around Spokane but my partner and I wanted to do something different than the others. We actually wanted to make a difference. As we began to do some research of all the opportunities we had to donate our time to none of them spiked our interest, until we started to think of cancer patients.
Now at first we honestly had no idea what to do to help improve the hospital life of cancer patients, we figured they’d all be super bitter or knocked out from pain medications. After long deliberation with one another and basically getting nowhere with our project we called the hospital and asked what would be good to give to the patients that would make a difference in their stay, and she replied stuffed animals. To our amazement after they have to go through a treatment or shots they have this thing called the prize bucket; which is where they keep a bunch of toys and stuffed animals for the kids to dig through and choose one of their liking. We started with the original idea of just getting little stuffed animals so they could put it into the chest for the children, but then we started thinking that we could do so much more than just that.
As 11 year olds at City School we had no idea how to start so we went to the teachers for some help in spreading the word that we needed stuffed animals to donate to the children in the cancer center. Our English teacher helped us set up an ad onto Craigslist but told us not to get our hopes up about getting anything because people don’t usually just give away stuffed animals. Boy was she wrong – over the next couple weeks we have gotten dozen of emails telling us that they had tons of stuffed animals that they would love for us to pick up. To our surprise most of those who came to us were very cooperative and we started to set up a schedule to pick up all the stuffed animals. My loving mother drove us all around Spokane to pick up these stuffed animals from people’s houses as we made our way back to my parents place we then made our corporate office my bedroom of course (my room was pretty awesome). When we were back to my parent’s house we got all the stuffed animals out of their containers and started sorting them, many were damaged and most smelled of smoke.; obviously due to the patients immune systems focusing on the cancer they cannot risk getting any other kind of illness so we ended up giving around half of the stuffed animals to Goodwill in the end. Although we had to donate around half of the stuffed animals to Goodwill and other thrift shops around town we still had around 100 stuffed seals, teddy bears, giraffes, everything to give to the children at the hospital. The nurses and staff were over joyed that two young girls were taking the time to collect stuffed animals and give them to the children who need something to hold onto while they’re getting treatments done.
Now that I reflect back onto all the good my partner and I had done with the stuffed animals, I believe that I could have donated more than I had already donated to begin with. With that note this is where I am at currently with my stuffed animal cause:
I find that there is a huge need for people to donate their time to these kids who are suffering from cancer because it can help make their days happier and less painful than they were before. Although it is not a whole lot, but just visiting the children once a week will at least give them something to look forward to. Due to the whole stigma of cancer those who know of the troubles of this disease tend to be more wary, and I know from personal experience that it feels great donating that one extra dollar with your bill at Alberstons or FredMyers; it actual feels like you are making a huge difference. But are you really? Do you know where your money is actually going? How much effect does you measly dollar make on these kids? These are some of the questions that ran through my head as I was reflecting back onto my stuffed animal donation. This is why I want to do so much more for these children.
In order to more, I have this idea. Now it may be crazy but I think it will at least make the kids happy and to be honest, is that not what we all want? They are children and some are the same age as me and I find it quite unfair that they are rudely judged for having cancer. I want to be a friend to them, be there for them, and make them happy. My idea is that with my original idea of donating stuffed animals a group begins to gather, anyone of any age and being is more than welcome to join; our plan is to go out and get more stuffed teddy bears, koalas, zebras, hippos… whatever stuffed animals you yourself find fit. Then we go out to our local hospitals and donate not only our time but also our stuffed animals to the children with cancer (or any other fatal condition). I thought of the idea of donating our time to make a relationship with these children after having some experiences with friends in the hospital. It made me think, what about the kids who don’t have friends to come visit them? I want to change that. No one, especially a child deserves to be alone in a hospital alone getting needles jabbed into them. I know for a fact that no one wants to be alone on his or her deathbed.
As of right now I do not have a group going nor do I have a name for this so called group, but together we can change that and begin changing the lives of the children that are suffering from these horrendous diseases. The more and more I think about that group project my friend and I had done in fifth grade really makes me wish that I had done more for them. Having a group visit different patients throughout the week and give them random gifts I very achievable, but the biggest obstacle we would have as a group would be getting enough stuffed animals for the kids and of course, funding. We can pay for most of the stuffed animals but I assume that we will eventually reach the set limit we have for spending. I strongly encourage anyone in the community if that may be nurses, firemen, police officers, even stay at home moms to get involved with out movement to make a difference. Become friends with them. Shove them love. Just let these children know that we care and they aren’t alone in the big scary world of cancer. I’m sharing my story and my plans for the future of this movement to make a difference in these kids lives and as we all know, kids love interaction – just someone to talk to. Just by being there for the children with cancer will make they’re fight and journey easier on them. If you are interested in our movement please begin the same movement in your town or city, and all you have to do is use our name and spread to the word to your friends and family.
Lets make this a global act so please always lend a smile and a helping hand to those in need of it. You can brighten their day by doing the simple act of caring.