Suggestions for making our project continue into the future

One thing that I think can help this project continue into the future would be assigning this project at the beginning of the semester rather than giving the students a choice. I think this is a great thing that really brings the community and Benedictine students together. For students like me who haven't really stepped out into the community to interact with the residents it was a great opportunity! By assigning this project at the beginning of the semester it will give a lot more time to the class to make it the best project possible. With having already done this project one time it will give whoever is teaching it the ability to have a leg up on what to do.

Atchison would be great if we had...

more activites for the youth. The youth is Atchison's future and this generation is driven by bad music and bad televison. If kids don't have things to do, they will find themselves looking for entertainment in the wrong places or getting themselves into trouble. If we had places like a city park that was kept up at all times or new resturants, or any place with activites where people ca get together, Atchison would be great. I hear a lot of people call this town Actionless Kansas rather than Atchison Kansas and they have good reason to. It seems that kids not only here but in every city are starting to go down the wrong path and need to be guided towards the right path. Keeping kids out of trouble keeps them from not becoming working parts of society. Kids need to be taught the importance of community in order to one day make this town a little better.

project reflection

That Saturday after the project was over, i felt so great about the impact we had on the people in need. This type of project gives hope to Atchison. At our house, the sense of community was almost overwelming. ONe of the neighbors brought his Bobcat to finish the driveway. This shows the strength of community within Atchison. I feel that everyone worked well on the project. The class is title Community Leadership so it's obvious that it would be full of individual leaders. This was apparent on project day. Everyone thinks that they know best, so sometimes people didn't completely agree. Overall, when we had to get to work, we worked well together. People could see individual tasks that needed completion and jumped on them without hesitation. I feel that we planned this project very well other than the estimate of supplies. But with everyone's help, supplies were not hard to get ahold of. Once we got to work, the time it took went very fast. Everyone there knew what they were doing and it was easy for everyone to help eachother get things done. I wouldn't have changed a thing about the project, it went very smooth.

continuing the project.

The success of our project was very apparent. The homeowners of the houses was did were grateful of the work that we accomplished. It was also apparent how great everyone in the class felt that they were able to help someone. WHen we presented the project the Rotary, they seemed to be very impressed. I feel that if this type of project is marketed to the various businesses in town and to the people of Atchison, we could get a lot more people on board. Now that some city officials are aware of our success, I wouldn't doubt that they would be willing to help with this type of project. The feeling of helping someone else is great and most people are aware of this. IF this project were to continue and the help of the city was given, this project could potentially be bigger than any of us could have ever thought.

BC involvement in community

BC should require you to do 5 hours of community service in order to graduate. 5 hours may go a long way in inspiring college students to be even more involved beyond the 5 hours.

Atchison would be GREAT if we had...

a city park. There are no "city parks"in Atchison. There are parks that are in some ways segregated by race and/or neighborhood location. Atchison needs a city park where everyone can come and enjoy the beauty of Atchison and where people can socialize with other town members that they don't know.

Continuing the project in the future

I think that our project that we did can be very successful for years to come. Hopefully our presentation at the Rotary influences the Rotary to become involved. There are many influencial, resourceful people in the Rotary who have the ability to keep the project going on a bigger scale with more improvements made to the homes. Also, becoming a part of organizations like Rebuild Together and Christmas in Action can be a great thing for this community.