What are you doing to make it better...

so i've seen a lot of bitching about the "government", society and whatever...as in:

http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=225919

so my question to you all...mostly intelligent, young people with time on your hands...

What are you doing to make it better...

personally, i'm not politically involved...but i am involved in two community charities for which i provide free programming and webhosting...not a huge commitment...but it does make a difference...

what are you involved in...politics, community, save the whales...whatever...

and if you're not doing anything...ask yourself ...why...you can still have time for quake3 after a little good work...and you won't be so cranky if you feel like you've made a difference...no matter how small...

(btw...website defacements for a "just cause" don't count...so don't tell me about them..)

I donate my humble skills to an elementary school. I plan to set up classes for the 4,5, and 6 year olds pretty soon, I'm gonna teach them how to set up a network. :thumbsup:

Dog rescue.

Teach the difference between the person "hacker" and "cracker" (not the biscuit).

Well, i work for a county hall in Portugal, so although I do not server the population (like I have a job with computers), my job is to give the means for my colleagues to be able to best serve them....

In my free time, I do some free work for some schools (mostly simple stuff, simple lans, and installing windows, and so on...) in the area of my residence.

Hummm, does going to public manifestations of human rights and so on, counts?! .....

Nice post....

well i vote ;)... hehe i organize and participate in protests... started a website... publish a free zine to strengthen awareness. and this is just the beginning of my plans ;)

I donate blood :) That way when people get shot up they can live to protest!

Louie> you also help maintain some semblance of peace in IRC, so.....

I don't do much. I will be honest. I used to, but I just really haven't been that motavated lately. Sooner or later, I will start getting involved in my community again, but right now.....
btw> I don't have time to play quake3, or any other games for that matter. I have never played quake 3, and I haven't turned on my PS2 in almost a month.

Lessee...

I'm a blood doner, but that's easy.

I'm a Junior Achievement counselor. I teach 7th grade personal economics at the moment. Junior Achievement is a program where local business people and/or college students come in to local schools (Anywhere from 1st to 12th grade) and teach basic business classes. My class lasts for six weeks and the kids learn basic marketing concepts, how to write checks, planning a monthly budget....that kind of thing. It's really quite fun.

I'm the technical coordinator for my college's SIFE team. I'm also a member of the team. For those that aren't aquainted with SIFE, it stands for Students in Free Enterprise. It's an international organization of students who "are dedicated to promoting the advancement of free enterprise in their communities". Or in plainer english, it's a business club.

We do many projects throughout the year involving the community, local schools and our school as well. We help startup business's develop marketing plans and/or webpages. Many of us teach JA classes. We do financial literacy seminars for high schoolers, and a program called Checkbook Challenge for the younger grades. Our biggest project this year was the business clothing drive where we collected used/new business clothes from the community and then paired with several groups (Salvation Army etc) to distribute them to people who need them to look good for a job interview, but can't necessarily afford to buy them.

That about covers me.

*hopes this thread-line doesn't turn into a slam against lazy teenagers*

-Keisha

I em do ehh i make pc for friends hang out with friends kick some bouncer butt that's all:D

And i make the school clean (after school that dirtbags)

Quote:

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I haven't turned on my PS2 in almost a month.

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give it to me = )

-Radiator52

/me hopping up on my soapbox

I bug the crap out of my senators and congressmen/women. Do you know that there are kids in America with not enough food and clothing!? Do you know that after Sept 11, when Florida (where I live) lost a great deal of its tourism money, one of the very first cuts that the state budget took was to cut Education spending?!

/me hopping off of my soapbox

Not that I personally think that it's worse for American kids to be starving or hungry than any other kids, but I think it's ludicrous that we spend billions on weapons of mass destruction, and so called foreign intelligence that didn't even let us know four planes were about to be flown into some of the largest buildings in America, and we can't feed the children here, and provide them adequate shelter, and clothing. It's like the story of the cobblers children who didn't have shoes. We are the first ones to offer aid and comfort to other countries, and yet we don't take care of the ones at home first. How can you try to save the world, which is what it appears Mr. Bush would like to do, when you have kids here who need to be saved?

And why on earth is education always one of the first "expendable" areas of budgeting in America? It's no wonder we are so low on the totem pole when it comes to international education levels....how can teachers be expected to teach when they have no supplies, or books, or anything else? I sat down with my check register, and added up all of the money I have spent on things for my son's classroom this year....it's almost a thousand dollars...which would be fine if it were for improvements in the classroom, or software or something like that. However the majority of it was for pencils, paper, glue, crayons, toilet paper, paper towels, etc.

Okay, it would seem I got back up on my soapbox, but I wasn't trying to sound so strident. It just infuriates me to know end to know that money is being spent so foolishly, and our children are the ones suffering primarily.

Like I said, I bug the crap out of every government official I can think of, local to national. I send emails, I make phone calls, I write letters. I also do what little bit I can to help the immediate situation in my community. I volunteer at my son's school to cover for teachers they have had to let go due to budget cuts, I spend my money to cover for some of the financial losses they have taken over the last year, and I keep up the phone campaign hoping it will do some good...if nothing else maybe they will be so sick of hearing from me, the next time a vote on cutting education spending comes up, they will think of me and say No way, don't want to hear from her anymore...wishful thinking, perhaps, but maybe it will work.

I make the world a better place...

by staying out of politics.
If a few of the bright minds in the
business of politics would come back
to the real world, and spend their energies
doing something useful, instead of chasing power,

...oh, well, that's too utopian.

I feed hungry children--- my own.
:cool:

Well let's see, I'm a Police Officer in the works so obviously my "community work" is up there.

I can't donate money to charities since I'm a poor college student who still owns a 250mhz...

However, I give blood,
Member of a security volunteering group,
Do community watch,
Do puppetshows to grade 2 students with the Provincial Police (OPP),
Teach young children how to play hockey,
D.A.R.E. rolemodel guest speaker,
And small things here and there.......

Am I making a difference? I aim to do so, why else would I be a cop? For the pay ::ha-sign:

No, I'm becoming a man in blue to make a difference.... and I hope I do.....

And I commemorate the rest of us on this tread for your volunteer/charity efforts......

First of all this is a really good thread so thanks to zigar for bring this topic up :).

I can't say that I'm involved very actively with community service as far as IT is concerned but I feel that I try to do my bit here at AO. I usually try to answer questions people have especially those regarding Linux and/or programming because that's where I feel I have the most experience.

I'm also a great believer in open source. And I also believe in contributing written works to the IT community for no charge. Hopefully, I will get around to writing some more documents/tutorials and put them on the web at places such as AO. I'd like to encourage people who have a decent ability to write to do the same. Post tutorials, ideas, program code. It's all good. That's the best way you can help your fellow IT people.

Keep it real homies ;).