Black Pre-Health Benefits

Last May, I traveled with Alternative Breaks to New York for community service. During this service, I worked with Meals on Wheels who dedicate their time to provide food for the elderly of Manhattan. As I delivered the food to the seniors, I got a sense of fulfillment because I made them smile by providing them with food. Thus, I chose MDC’s Single Stop because I wanted to make a difference in my home campus by providing and assuring nourishment to those that do not have it just like I did in New York. As my first two years of college comes to an end, I wanted to leave a mark of my own here at home at Miami Dade College North Campus. During the month of September, I decided to partner up with a few of my peers to serve at MDC’s Single Stop.

This past summer, I acquired an internship at Baldwin and Lyons, an insurance company in Indianapolis. Every Wednesday during my internship, a couple of employees and I would participate in a prodigious community service project, Meals on Wheels. Throughout the three months that I worked at Baldwin and Lyons, I got acquainted with some of the individuals whom we delivered to. These inspiring individuals were so grateful and appreciative that we took time out of our day to volunteer to do such a service. One elderly woman who we delivered to would sing to us as she came to the front door “good meals, good meals, good meals.” She is one woman that I will never forget. First going into this, I was elated knowing I was I getting out of the

This past year, my co-site-leader and I planned and lead eighteen other students on a week-long, service-learning trip to Indianapolis focusing on the issue of public health. Our group served the community for forty hours through seven different organizations in the community ranging from Gleaners Food Bank to the Julian Center, a center for victims of domestic violence. Through reflection and service, the interconnected network of social injustices soon became apparent in our discussion of public health as a major social justice focus. Through our discussions, we realized that we are capable of extending ourselves into the local community and making a significant difference. For me, leadership is not solely measured by the immediate outcome or a visible change; leadership should help others realize the untapped potentials within themselves. This goal was achieved in our lengthy service reflections in

As a health outreach coordinator for the school, I sometimes had difficulty connecting with the students. Attendance of my programs was low and I could not understand why. This is when Mr. D challenged me to understand, connect with, and become the community. I began attending school events. I walked the halls more to become a familiar face. Rather than creating programs for the students, I began planning with the students. From then on I started receiving honest insight into how the students view their own health and of their community. They would open up and tell me the problems they were facing and how I could tailor my programs to address them properly. By connecting on a personal level with students, participation in the outreach programs skyrocketed. After discovering students weren’t eating breakfast, the wildly successful “Free Fresh Fruit Fridays” was created and I became known as the fruit man. Twice a week zumba classes were established when it was realized that some students didn’t believe they could be physically

“Life’s most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”(Martin Luther King Jr.). There are many ways to get involved, one way is to volunteer. P.B.J. (Peanut Butter and Jelly) Outreach, Inc. is a non-profit organization focused on feeding and clothing the poor and marginalized living in the Detroit metropolitan area. The organization unites volunteers and equips them to obtain, prepare and distribute food and clothing while creating an awareness of our obligation to service others. P.B.J has many positive effects, it is truly a unique outreach program based face-to-face involvement and the lasting impression it leave with volunteers.

A few people shuffled uncomfortably in their seats, someone looked around to see the state of courage in the room, and my heart skipped a beat. Before I even realized it myself, my hand rose up to volunteer as committee chair of the canned food drive for Key Club. This was it; this was me going from helper to bigger helper. Learning from my past canned food drive, I wanted to do more and knew the importance of each and everyone’s help. Three long weeks later, on a chilly autumn afternoon, a few awkward high-school girls and boys were standing by the automatic opening and closing doors of Safeway. We handed passersby flyers with a list of non-perishables they could donate to our cause. I remember feeling nervous at the thought of approaching

As a health educator, my responsibilities included implementing research-based prevention and youth development programs. While studying at New Jersey City University, I was afforded many opportunities to display my knowledge as a health educator. NJCU’s annual Cooking Matter program allowed me to provide education, strategies, and implement plans on how to decrease hunger for youth in Jersey City. My supervisor relied on my ability to plan, organize and assess the program. I found that my organizational skills along with my ability to multi task in fast pace settings allowed me to assist in the Cooking Matter program’s success.

For my agency visit, I chose write about a program that I have heard about in my community but did not know much about. I interviewed Mr. Eddie Jones, a contact person for the CHEW program at Gardners Elementary School. CHEW stands for the Children's Hunger Elimination of Wilson. The program started as a result of seeing children in Wilson County schools behaving in ways suggesting they may not be eating outside of school. Staff would witness things like children stealing food, stockpiling any available food, and running to be first in the cafeteria line. It was then that administrators decided something needed to happen to prevent children from going hungry at home.

When first prompted with the assignment to volunteer 20 hours of my time somewhere off the University of Minnesota’s campus, I was quite stressed out because of the time commitment. However, as I was reading through the list of possible locations to volunteer one particular place grabbed my attention and made me feel as though it would not be as terrible of an experience that I assumed it would be for me. The name of this place was Waite House and thankfully it is currently the organization where I am engaging in my service-learning. Waite House is located in the Ventura Village neighborhood within the Phillips community in Minneapolis. Waite House caught my attention because not only was it a relatively short commute on the public transit system, but the description mentioned youth fitness and obesity/diabetes prevention. Not only am I educated in diabetes prevention, but I also have previous experience with fitness and working with youth. So, I applied to this organization because I felt as though Waite House would be the perfect placement for me.

When we began our semester at YCMS, it was clear there were many areas for growth throughout the school. PHS as well as the administrative staff at YCMS had ideas about what they wanted to get done, we took their opinions, as well conclusions drawn from our own assessment, to determine our priority need. We decided to focus on healthy eating and healthy habits. We wanted to incorporate the staffs input as well, and took the vice principals recommendation for a competition based initiative into play.

Organizations and movements like the Black Panthers have really shaped how people can really make a difference in helping to change the food system. There are various non-profit organizations that are working really hard to help feed people that have certain circumstances including low-income, unemployed, and various others. Helena Lyson conducted a series of interviews with a lot of different people that had various backgrounds and races, all located in the near area of Oakland, California. Her finding that there was a little group of activist that are a person of color and people that do not have some college experience or a high school diploma. The majority was white women supporting and working for these organizations and this is great that different people are getting involved and are participating to help people that need these resources and support to have a healthy meal for

Facilitated activities for the California Department of Health Services, Prevention and Nutrition Section: Champions for Change. As a community leader, I was in charge of delivering Champion for Change nutrition education information. I participated in several events such as the Fruits and Veggie Fest and grocery store demos. During both events, I was able to reach out to both English and Spanish speaking community members and share Champion for Change recipes and promote the consumption of fruits and vegetables and a healthier lifestyle. I interacted with kids by playing nutrition related games and shared with parents tips and information packets from the Champions for Change material.

A few years ago during the summer months I volunteered as a tutor for summer school students at the local Youth Center. I was very excited to be devoting much of my time to giving back to the community I had not seen since a few winters ago. Many coworkers and I were working at various different workshops and going on deployments, and for the first time I was in an unfamiliar situation, but in a familiar place. Since it had been some time spending an extensive amount of time overseas, there was a bit of reacquainting I had to do in order to have a positive social life. Living only a couple blocks from the Center, I remembered that there was often a need for additional volunteers to help cater to all the summer school students who would use the facility after class

The health fair consisted of physicians and nurses along with volunteers to serve the underserved community. I was there with employees of Madera community hospital along with my mom, a registered nurse at the hospital. Initially, the volunteers were able to pick where they would to volunteer; I was not sure where to help out, so I waited to get assigned a position, and that was where I experienced this turning point. My assignment was to inform that patients what their sugar levels and blood pressure were compared to normal levels as well as informing them of what they can do to prevent those levels from going too high. Just this simple task, however, made a difference in the elderly woman’s life.

Interning at the American Heart Association, I am able to work with community strategic partners such as health care professionals, businesses, and community based organizations to expand health. I collaborate with other legacy leaders from the California State University, Fullerton as well as the University of California, Irvine to plan and attend health fairs in Orange County. Since interning at AHA, I have attended about seven health fairs and the health fair that had left a lasting memory with me, would be the health fair held at the John Wayne Airport. This health fair was super informative for me because while informing the employees about blood pressure and strokes, I learned that there have recently been quite a few heart attacks at the airport. The employees were extremely thankful that we came and gave them such informative and life changing information about heart health. Usually before going to these health fairs, a group of legacy leaders would get together and see what we will be teaching the community that event and go from there. We all talk and then develop a way to get the community involved by thinking of ways to make learning the information in a way that is interactive and fun. Interactive activities make leaning much more fun and easier to remember. I also had the opportunity to make my own community event and go out and teach others. I chose to do my event teaching hands only CPR to my bible school class on Saturday. My students loved how interactive