Allison's CAS Blog

On the morning of the Sadie Hawkins dance, my church, First Baptist Church Carrollton, hosted a Rise Against Hunger event that is community-wide. I usually like to go to this event alone and can get service hours for the amount of time I've spent volunteering. Rise Against Hunger is a non-profit organization that involves packaging food and distributing it to help people around the world. Most countries that receive this food are still developing and need assistance concerning food and nutrition. Their main goals are to advocate, educate, and mandate food security all around the globe.  This relates to my blog because my Sadies date, my friend, and I wanted to go before Sadies as a kind of icebreaker before the night began. We met that morning at my church and were immediately put to work by the church staff who were also volunteering. We were assigned to make boxes for the food to be packaged in. This sounds a little boring, but it left room for conversation. All three of us talke...

  January 24th was my most recent Student Advisory Council meeting with the Georgia State Superintendent of Schools. Our first meeting, which was held back in November, consisted of a few icebreakers to get to know one another and a brief Q&A with Richard Woods as well as organizations asking for our input on different school policies such as the Student Health Survey. That meeting made me really excited for the next meeting. My previous blog was about my anticipation and preparation for the meeting that was just held last week. That preparation was incredibly useful and allowed me to come to the meeting with confidence.  On that Wednesday morning, I met another friend of 3 that I have gotten close to in all. Her name is Hannah and we hit it off really well. She is a junior who is a basketball cheerleader. We asked each other questions about our plans for college and for our service project. Her service project has to deal with helping students from low-income families wit...

  On Wednesday, I have another Student Advisory Council meeting. As mentioned previously in one of my blogs, to be a member of this council means taking on great responsibility. The introductory meeting took place on November 9th, where there were a lot of icebreakers and activities for us to get to know one another. Now that we have gotten the hang of what it takes to be a member and to know one another, they put us to work and asked for our opinions on different things the Georgia Board of Education was willing to implement. Things such as a video on mental health, questions that are on the student safety survey, and Georgia Futures scholarships were brought to our attention. I really enjoyed this because it allowed me to gain a voice for my peers at Carrollton High School and to advocate for what is best for our students.  At this moment, I am preparing for the next meeting for whatever it may intail. It was very important last meeting that we as members come up with a serv...

  As the new year begins and everyone decides to make their resolutions, it's hard to understand why everyone waits until January 1st to start taking control of of their life. Though knowing the reason why most people do this can be difficult, I have fell victim to this lifestyle as well. Seeing everyone have the "perfect" lifestyle on TikTok and Instagram often makes me feel insecure about my normal tendencies in my daily life. If I see one more "Day in the life" TikTok where the picture-perfect girl takes her resolutions and make them come to life my head might explode. Usually, I tend to spend the last week of December eating junk food, falling behind on my chores, and waking up late as if it makes me feel even better on January 1st when I actually act like a decend human being. However, now that I have "control" over my life, here is what I've decided my 2024's going to look like.  Starting with a journal entry, I reflected on my 2023 and l...

  As the holiday season rolls around, the different clubs at school have different ways of celebrating! As for Serteen, a club that encourages students to develop relationships with the special education students at Carrollton High School, many holiday parties are held throughout the year. This year, they had a Christmas party that encouraged all club members to attend so they could bond with their buddies. It was held during fourth block on the last Thursday of the semester and was in Coach Harper's room filled with all of the students in the special education and CBI -- collaborative-based instruction-- classes.  At the start of the party, I gave my gifts to my buddy, Dakota, who loves and is appreciative of everything he receives! He is filled with utmost joy and happiness when Christmas time rolls around and loves to talk with everyone who is around him. I've had the joy to get to know him and his wonderful personality and it really showed during this party. He loved cooki...

  Since the fall of 2020, my sister has been an NYU student and is now in her senior year of college! In the duration that she's been living in New York, I've visited her 4 times with my family, yet I never went by myself to visit her. My family and I decided that it was time to go visit her alone! As someone who has a minor fear of flying and traveling alone, I took this opportunity as a sign that this would give me great insight into what life would be like in college. This past weekend, I had a wonderful experience given by my sister of what life would be like as a student at NYU! Preparing for the travel date, I was super nervous yet anticipant of what was to come! I knew that the weekend ahead of me would be wonderful and full of newly made memories, so that made me excited for the flight. This allowed me to push past my fears of getting on a flight by myself! It turned out to be an incredibly smooth flight and I got there safely--after delays of course. The days were spen...

  In the middle of August, I applied to be a member of state superintendent Richard Woods' Student Advisory Council! Each year, there is a new student council that helps the superintendent create decisions for the betterment of the Georgia Department of Education. The application consisted of questions that asked us about what we would contribute as a member and what problems we see within the educational system. I decided to talk about the lack of diversity within higher-level classes such as AP and IB and the recent obsession with STEM programs instead of English and History subjects and how it affects a student's ability to communicate with others. At the end of September, I was notified that I was 1 out of 69 students who were chosen for the council!  Nearly two Thursdays ago, I had to travel to Atlanta to the Georgia Department of Education building that held the meeting we were all supposed to be in attendance for. The first thing on the agenda was to get breakfast which...