Week 10: We Day Celebration

We Day Celebration

              Whew it has been a long journey! I can remember how my group and I did not even know about the local homelessness that was and still is occurring  in our community, to how we are now taking action against this way to common issue and speaking out about it. This year in Holmes Heroes has been a such an amazing year because we have done and learned so much. The one thing I on a personal level have taken from this entire year is that we all are powerful in some way, and when we unite together we can do something and make a change. When watching these inspirational videos of people taking action against an issue they were passionate for, I realized that me and many others are so privileged and have so many resources at hand. We should use these privileges and resources to better the lives of other who aren't as fortunate as us. I will remember and put forward those thoughts throughout my whole life. Now here's to talking about what you probably really wanted to hear about... We Day! Yesterday we had the greatest privilege to be invited to attend We Day. We Day is an event that provides motivational speaker, celebrities, and so many more people that have made an positive impact, for students who have volunteered to better an issue somewhere in their world whether it be globally or locally. When we arrived the energy and excitement their was already through the roof!  We heard so many inspiring and incredible stories from people like Paula Abdul, Spencer West, Henry Winkler, and so many more amazing people! The event was split into four parts that covered us having and being powerful, us having and being determination, what we can do with these two traits, and how the world needs this. May I just say that there was no moment in the show where I had an ounce of boredom in me because everyone was so hyped and energetic! Hearing these inspirational stories from people who have obtained fame, and even just ordinary student like me put everything in perspective. It made me think deeper about making a change for others and that it does take hard work, but it will pay off in the end. After this event I walked out of the arena feeling refreshed and renewed to start making a positive impact not just on my community but on this entire world. I think this thought is a step towards that goal. This year in Holmes Heroes has been such an eye opener and what I've learned from it will stick with me forever. I'm pretty sure this is our final blog and I just want to thank the readers who have been reading our journey throughout the entire time. The fundraiser for our group will be occurring next week and I can't wait to see where that will lead us. Have a great day and be the change.

                                                                                               -Kamika



We also were featured in our community newspaper, The Daily Herald!
Article of Holmes Heroes: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20160426/news/160428976/

Week 9: Finishing the Last Details

Torture the Teacher takeoff and Kare Kits

This week we are finishing the fundraiser by setting the dates and getting the right information out to everyone. Some of the dares or "tortures" that are going to be inflicted on the teacher are having 4 of our teachers have a lip sync battle if all of the lunch periods raise ten dollars each, eating a bug, where funny clothes or makeup for the day and the last and final one will be shaving a question mark of HH which stands for Holmes Hero's onto the back of head or dyeing the ends of hair if the students raise three hundred dollars at the end of the fundraiser. The amount of money that will have to be raised will increase each day by how daring of the dare is going to be. The money raised with that will go towards the donation to the homeless shelter. The Kare Kits have been going very well and only need to be filled and sent off to the homeless shelter. This up coming week will be the WE day celebration and we cannot wait for that!

Week 8: Raising Awareness

     Raising Awareness!

   This week we worked on getting the word out! In the past we told you about all the ideas we had brainstormed, but this week we chose to work on the flyers. We wanted to make our flyers pop, so we added lots of fancy fonts and colors. Now all we have to do is hang them up and wait for them to get noticed!
    That´s not all! Our group wound up splitting in two, so the other half of our group worked on inspirational messages and quotes to staple onto the Kare Kits. We want to inspire the homeless so that they don´t feel unhappy... I mean everyone deserves to be happy!


~Christina

Week 7: Torture The Teacher

Sending emails to pretty much all the teachers in our middle can take a while. But it will be worth it when they agree to our plan...no it's not evil, well not quite. We are having a fundraiser called torture the teacher,You may ask who even came up with that? You're answer is, everyone in our group. We thought it will be a great eye catcher when the student hear about it and who doesn't like to do that. We are brainstorming ideas for the dares that our lovely teachers might do. Depends if they can take it. I think they will, we only have some ideas like dying their hair and shaving their hair, and don't worry it wont get worst I do not promise you that. What? don't make promises you might not keep. Taught you a lesson right there.   Anyways that what we did for the week. In a while there will be part two of Torture The Teacher. Have a great day! 

Week 6: Falling Into Place

Falling Into Place

Hello! So this week all our plans, preparations, and ideas are starting to work out. We have officially decided what to put into our Kare Kits, the bags that we will be donating to shelters. We have contacted one specific shelter to accept these donation and kits. And our fundraiser for our school is still in progress, but we have so many fun ideas for it! This week was to take a step back and plan all our goals out. We have so many things going on at once, that it can be very hectic! We hope that in two weeks time everything will be ready to go and the community will start noticing our mission. We want to get as many people as aware because in order to solve an issue, you have to be and remain informed. Anyways that is all for this week and I hope you come back next week to read about our further progress!

-Martin

(An idea of the items that may be in our Kare Kits)

Week 5: Planning our ideas

Hi, so this week we are planning and organizing our ideas to reach out and help people that are homeless. We are trying to reach out to the shelters and thinking of what we need to do to help them out. We are planning our ideas of making care kits and putting them in a bag to send them to the homeless shelter and when there are homeless people in the shelter they could pick one up. In the care kits we could put the nesseceties that are nessecary like toilet trees and these care kits would help them. Before we made a go fund me account you could donate if you would like too.

These are some of the care kits of the products we could put in. We love giving back to others.

                                

                                                                                 -Anna :)

Week 4: Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

    Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

    This week our main purpose was to focus on two things. First of all we worked on coming up with a plan to figure out what we want to use the money we are raising for. After a very effective group discussion, we decided on making blessing bags. There are great homeless shelters in our area providing the homeless with the food they need but what about the necessities that they need to use everyday? When you think about someone who is homeless, most likely the first thought that crosses your mind is that they need food. While this is indeed true, that is definitely not all they need! They are people just like us who need lots of the same items that we use each and every day. Just some of them being; toothpaste, toothbrushes, mints, socks, shampoo, chapstick, combs, and bandages. 

    Secondly, we worked on adding ideas to our list of fundraising ideas. I mean with all these blessing bags we plan to make, we will sure need some money to help! Lucky for us fundraising can be extremely fun! Well... that is unless you´re the leaders of our group who we plan to hold an event where students can pay to ¨torture¨ them. We will have different ideas such as dying their hair or dressing up as a clown for the day. Then, anyone who wants to participate will be able to pay $1 to vote on their favorite form of ¨torture.¨

 Don´t forget to come back next week to see how our blessing bags turn out!

~Christina

P.S. Our GoFundMe is doing great! We are already at $315... so keep those donations coming because they are really helping!

GoFundMe Link

Link to GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/mtnckm8c

Week 3: Reaching Out

Reaching Out

               Have you ever seen flyers at a local area in town, that appeal to you for its purpose and appearance? You look at it once, and immediately take interest in it! Well, we've realized that this actually does not happen often as people are busy in their daily routine's and own schedules, and don't really care to notice their surroundings. We have all been guilty of this, but myself and my team members want to change this. This following week at Holmes Heroes, we will be making and distributing flyers to get others outside of this club aware about the issue of local homelessness. My group members have come up with ideas like handing out flyers, producing a video for our school's announcements, and many more to reach out to people and get them aware. Our goal is to come up with interesting approaches, so that people do take their time to notice our cause and take some time to learn about it! We do realize this will be a tad difficult, but we're up for the challenge! 

           Additionally, with the help of other students and teachers we have even made a GoFundMe account where people can donate to our cause and raise money. This GoFundMe, will be handled by our club supervisors, and will solely be used for our cause. Also, we did not get much of an answer from the shelter we had contacted next week, but we did get more than enough knowledge and factual information on local homelessness, that we are now prepared to take action! We can't wait until our flyers and poster are designed, as we hope to show them next week! Overall, our main job this week was to come up with ways for others be aware and support us in our cause. This is because when more people are aware, the more people there are to acknowledge and better this issue. We want to reach out to everyone, going from students, teachers, and adults! We can't wait to create the flyers, videos, and posters and we hope that next week you'll be reading to see and share our hard work!

                                                                                                                           -Sofia

Week 2: Finding Answers and Heading On

Finding Answers and Heading On

             This week we focused on answering and researching the questions we had asked last week. We did plenty of research online, finding the statistics, reasons, and affects of homelessness in our community. Our group did get a lot of new knowledge on local homelessness, but we wanted  more that just online research. Two members of our group, called and reached out to Shelter Inc, an organization that reaches out to families in a crisis. We wanted to ask them more, and in depth questions about the homelessness in our community, we can't wait to see their replies! Once we do, we will have a much more better understanding to start treating this issue. My group hopes to contact more shelters, and organizations in our community to find out the things we can do to treat this issue. When we get all our research, we will see what we should do with the research and knowledge we have gathered. I cannot wait to see what next week will have in store for our group, and what our next step will be! Hope you enjoyed reading this, and keep reading our journey to solve local homelessness!

-Shala

Week 1: Asking Questions

1/22/16

Asking Questions

            Beginning from our childhood, most of us would ask simple questions to grasp knowledge about a certain topic. We would come across a situation that sparked interest and curiosity and proceeded to question it, to learn why this situation is existent. Many kids question their parents as to why they have to eat their vegetables. Parents respond usually with, "Because they're good for you." This answer is usually told in order to quiet the child and let them continue with eating their vegetables. Though sometimes the child will respond with a word that could lead to greater things, "Why?" 

          Asking why, could lead to more and more questions, expanding the child's knowledge and grasp on the topic. This was how we wanted to start off our mission. We did not want to begin helping an issue that we had no specific knowledge on, or understanding of. Our first task was to write down all the questions we had to comprehend local homelessness, and how we could treat this issue. We all thought that this task would be difficult, because we all thought we had no questions to ask. Our thoughts were completely and utterly wrong. Once we wrote down one question on a piece of paper, more seemed to form and tumble out of our heads than we could ever imagine. The final product, made our entire group realize that most of us needed a better understanding of local homelessness and some realistic facts that could give us clear answers. I personally, have learned that if we keep asking questions, we keep getting better answers. Asking questions is the best way to get the information we need to make informed decisions on the situations we face. 

-Kamika

                                              

About Us

1/22/16

About Us

             Local Homelessness is an issue that we strive to make a change in. This group consists of ten eighth grade students all attending Holmes Jr. High, and participating in Holmes Heroes. Holmes Heroes is an after school club, held each Friday of the school year. Holmes Heroes was begun in the year of 2014, and was founded for any student who strives to be an activist for an issue and to make a change.  Our own mission is to help people at a low point in their lives and aid them out of homelessness. Throughout our journey to carry out this mission, we will post once a week informing readers of our progress, new found goals, and achievements. Each one of our group members will write at least one post throughout all of this. We hope that our aspirations will inspire others, and to put it simply, be the change.