Option 1- Trevor Hinton

​What I found most difficult about this was trying to find a topic that would resonate with people and actually be something they wanted to read and not just another story, I tried to pick a topic that held some merit and weight so that it would be easy for me to talk about it but I also wanted to pick a topic that hit close to home for myself.

I went about finding my story by actually first thinking of things that get me thinking if I'm in the car riding past something or just hearing about something on the news, and with this I actually first got the idea when my two younger brothers approached my mom about needing money to go on a trip with their afterschool program.

I don't think this story receives much attention because most people take these programs for granted and don't really think about the intricacy that goes in to actually running these programs and maintaining them as well as the fact that a lot of these programs aren't big name or commercially known and so because of that not a lot of help can be given.

I learned that without inside help and inside knowledge to push the case and need for more things this will remain silent and unheard of to a lot of people.


Trevor Hinton

Globalization

4th quarter benchmark

 

In and around Philadelphia it isn’t hard to spot a Boys and Girls club or sports group that consist of children from and around the neighborhood enjoying various activities and spending time with mentors and friends. You’ve seen the ads and commercials boasting of the success many famous celebrities actors and actresses have had after being in a Boys and Girls club and the urge they put on children from communities to join and be embraced by the good mentoring programs that they can give to a young person; while many good things and young people come from these programs there is a small group of afterschool programs that don’t get the necessary funding and support that programs like the Boys and Girls club which is a much larger organization receives and the problem arises when you are no longer able to accept children into these programs and their parents still wish to have them doing something proactive after school has been dismissed. A lot of these programs are run out of a child’s school as a way to keep them off the streets but when funding is an issue and program directors can’t get enough of something to keep the program going it can cause the children to lose interest or worse for the whole program to be suspended. There are a lot of things that go into running a afterschool program such as planning of any trips, snacks for the children, planning of activities and any supplies that, something as simple as an afterschool program that allows children to just play sports and hangout with friends for as long as they can so that they are occupied isn’t as hard to manage however when trying to coordinate and plan things outside of sports or arts and crafts it becomes a bigger issue of how to gather everything that is needed in a timely matter so that things can be done properly. My two brothers were in a afterschool program that was run out of there school that taught inner city kids going to public schools how to wrestle and stay off the streets and while the program was a great success and drew many kids in when it came for them to go to different competitions to compete and go to places like the University of Penn to practice because of the lack of funding that was able to be provided from the school a lot of things had to come from willing parents i.e. rides to competitions (sometimes as far as Lehigh), snacks, and in some instances putting down a certain monetary amount so they would be able to rent a bus or van for the day. The bigger question that arises from this is what can be done to keep programs like these running and up if they don’t have the support of a school district or other community programs; if the idea is to keep kids safe and off of the streets getting into things that could harm them shouldn’t more be put on any and everyone involved to have a bigger plan in place to keep things like this open and running as long as possible, what grants can be given what donations can be made to these smaller programs, these are questions that have yet to be given a concrete answer to aid this cause.

 

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