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Hurray! Today is Martin Luther King’s day!
Well, we were very curious about how people celebrate MLK day of service since
it’s our first time. Departed from our lovely hotel with super cold weather in
winter, we rode the school bus (yeah just like in the movie, quite big and
yellow bus with heater!) We were going to Girard College There is a little
history about “Girard” name, Girard is the name of gentleman who was very rich
in that time, when he was about to die he decided to donate his money to the
city by building an education institution.
When we
arrived there we saw many people came and walked around, and then we entered a
big hall and wow! It’s so crowded, there was a long line there, we got free
T-shirt and also free snack like peanut and fruit. Stuart, one of our staff
told us that today was the special event because there would be a special guest
from the state would come. Hmm..we’re speculating and some people said it could
be The Lady Michelle Obama, awesome!
Well unfortunately, because of the special guest we had to
get through the security check, that’s why we had a long line, and while
waiting we saw lots of stalls and booths there. All of them is about
volunteerism, NGOs, and educating institution. Starts from NGO promoting to
save animals, save the environment, life donation, giving free baby diapers for
young mothers, giving free snack to promote “stop obesity” by making low fat
but still delicious food, and many more! We were amazed by the anthusiasm of
people in Philadelhpia for their devotion of community, in fact some of them do
all of this volunteerism activity with their own money!
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| Lots of volunteers! We even have to wait if we want to be the volunteer! :D |
It’s not
just that, there were some booths to educate people starts from educate people
of using sign language, how to give the first aid (CPR), how to keep environment
clean by not throwing garbage. There were also classes like making cards for
the seniors, making carton flowers with our own handwriting about hope in it,
there were also activity of packing and making food for donation.
It’s
still not the best part. The best part is telling you who is the special guest.
Well, it’s Mr. Joe Byden! When we heard that name we don’t understand the
excitement, we even asked our staff, Per, “Who is he, Per?”, and people who
heard our “silly” question laughed. Well, he is the vice president of United
States! Wow ( now we know the excitement)! Our staff told us that this is their
first time watching Joe Byden gave his speech directly, so they said that we
were so lucky! We even had chance to take some photos with Mrs. Byden.
This was
an awesome experience, I couldn’t tell you how excited and happy I am knowing
how people still care about the community, apart from this cruel and
money-oriented world we still have people who cares about the poor and unlucky
people!
Oh, and I should tell you the fact of MLK
day, actually in MLK day, people doing service for the community like maybe
going to the orphanage, being volunteer, and etc. But, we had to go back home!
We went back to Temple University for having lunch with having good
conversation with the staff. After that we started to have orientation about
what is religious pluralism especially in United States.
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We were
watching the video, which told us about short history of United States that
have struggled since 3 centuries ago to get a real democracy system and state
the slogan “ E plurubus unum, out of many, one” United States experienced
terrible moment to achieve their peace and justice.
Even now, they are keep developing to
create the real democracy, peace and justice in the diversity world. We also
had discussion about religious pluralism, we started to be critical in seeing
the condition in Indonesia and United States. One of our goals going to
Philadelphia is to learn about United States. Well of course not all of it is
good, but not all of it is bad either, we started to see the good things and
learn from it and trying to prevent the bad things happens, and we are about to
apply it in Indonesia. You can do it too! Stay tune on our blog, have some
comments or questions? Feel free to ask!
No such thing as silly question guys! :)
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