Grant

Executive Summary:

            Venturing Crew 42 is an organization for young people to do fun activities, and give back to their community. We are only in our second year, but we have already done service in Homer Lake and at the local Food Pantry. We continue to regularly volunteer at the Food Pantry, and are already planning our next trip to Homer Lake.

            The other aspect of what we do is high adventure. We have gone on canoe trips, backpacking trips, rock climbing trips, and more. This upcoming summer, we will be going on a weeklong backpacking trip in New Mexico.

            Unfortunately, not all of our members can afford to go on these trips. The price of buying gear, buying supplies, transportation, and using services can add up quickly, and some of our members struggle to pay.

            In order to solve this issue, we want to establish a crew account. When a member falls short and cannot afford to come on a trip, the account will supply the remaining funds. This will allow more of our members to come to our outings. However, this will increase the time we need to fundraise.

            Since we would prefer to do community service than sell overpriced food items, we, as the members of Venturing Crew 42, ask that you consider donating $150 to us for every 10 hours we volunteer to help us establish a Crew Funds Account.

Needs Assessment:

            Every year, we try to go on about five or six outings. In years where we have a bigger outing, we only do about three or four. The cost of these outings will undoubtedly vary, some only costing about $25, while others can be anywhere between $100 to $200. When we have a large trip, it costs us a disproportionately large amount. The trip we’re going on this upcoming summer will be about $2000, and that doesn’t include the price of the gear every member must have.

            Needless to say, the costs will add up. If a kid were to go on every outing this year, they would end up paying about $2,250. It could be more, or it could be less, depending on what we plan to do. Some of the money we can earn through small fundraising opportunities at local events. However, these don’t make us very much money. The average fundraiser will give each member anywhere from $20 to $50, depending on how long they work. Considering we only have two or three of these per year, this is an insufficient method to pay for these activities.

            While some of the youth in our crew can afford to go on the majority of our outings, there are some who cannot. These youth come from families who are less well off, and they simply cannot afford to pay for every crew event.

            We have done we can to try to make up for this. We have volunteered to work concessions stands at University of Illinois sporting events. We have sold different items going door to door. We have been trying to find a way to make enough money that every member of our crew can attend our outings. Nonetheless, we have still come up short.

Why we should say no to coal

             Clean drinking water: it’s something we sometimes take for granted here in central Illinois. However, something so important to us all may soon go away.

The Sunrise Coal Company wants to build their Bulldog Coal Mine in the area between the communities of Homer, Sidell, Fairmount, and Broadlands. The effect the mine would have on these communities, as well as those in the surrounding area, could be devastating. That is, if those people value having clean water.

When the Bulldog Coal Mine is fully functional, it will use about 2,000,000 gallons of water per day! The communities of Homer, Broadlands, Longview, and Allerton use about 258,000 gallons of water per day combined. If we let the mine use this much water, we might not have any for ourselves. If water is used at such a rate, it cannot be naturally replaced fast enough. Our wells will not be able to get us the water we need to survive.

That is more of a long term issue. However, there is a much more urgent issue that must be addressed: pollution. Sunrise Coal has announced that they plan to wash the coal on site. Once the coal is washed, they will take the clean coal away. What they leave behind is potentially deadly. The water used to clean the coal, called slurry, can just be dumped into mine pits. This poor disposal system allows the slurry to contaminate our water supply. Slurry is toxic, and could render our water unusable.

However, this issue has a wider impact than just our drinking water. The Bulldog Coal Mine could destroy the life in nearby streams. First of all, the mine makes a storm water basin to help manage water flow. The basin is essentially a dam, and that has two big problem. The first is that a basin won’t drain the farmland the way the a stream used to. The second is that pollution from the mine will be steadily discharged into the stream. The components of this pollution and the effects they can have is just horrible. The components include chlorides which are poisonous to fish, sulfates that can be irritating and even toxic to livestock and other animals that drink from the stream, and heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, mercury, and selenium. The heavy metals can contaminate our drinking water and the fish in the stream, and upon consumption can lead to multiple health issues.

While the problems are mortifying, the solutions are fairly straightforward. One solution would be that Sunrise Coal takes responsibility for the mess, and properly disposes of the toxic materials, hopefully making some of them safer in the process. Or we could just keep the coal where it is: underground. If we prevent Sunrise from building the Bulldog Mine, none of this will become an issue. We won’t have to worry about the ecosystems in our streams being destroyed, we won’t have to worry about our water running out, and we won’t have to worry about our own tap water killing us. That is why I stand up to coal.

Me? Swear? never...

How often do you swear, and why?

            Swearing: it’s everywhere nowadays. People just throw the words around. They curse to describe everything: the mosquito that just bit them, the hammer they just dropped on their foot, the paper due tomorrow in English, that person they hate, the commercial interrupting the basketball game, said basketball game, the delicious cake they’re about to eat, their favorite movie, their best friend… The list goes on and on.

Personally, I try not to swear when it isn’t necessary. Of course, there was a time when I didn’t realize what the words meant, but I knew what they were, and I used them. I was much younger then. About 3 or 4 years old in fact. One specific story comes to mind: I was out walking with my dad in the cornfield across the street. We had found some arrowheads and other neat things, so we went out looking for more. On this walk, I found the coolest corncob ever. I wanted to keep this corncob for myself, but my dad wouldn’t let me. After arguing for a while, I gave up. I threw down the corncob and shouted, “Damn it!” as loud as I could. My dad was shocked. I told him that “I want the damn corncob!” and he was not happy with me. The funny thing is, it’s his own fault that I knew the word. He only said it once, but that was one time too many :).

Now that I’m older and know better, I try not to use those words. I don’t have a problem with saying them, I just don’t want them to lose their meaning. You see, when someone lays down the F bomb every other sentence, it starts to lose its meaning. But, if I don’t ever really curse, then you know something big is up when I do.

However, when the words I’m saying aren’t really my own, I don’t mind swearing. For example, if I’m playing a role in a play, and my character curses, I will curse. This is different from me swearing. Instead of me swearing, that is the character swearing. Or, for instance, if I’m quoting somebody, and they swore, I’ll swear. I mean, the saying loses some of its power if you just say, “darn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

Nonetheless, I think it is best overall to try to limit use of cuss words. If nothing else, for the future. If I’m not supposed to swear in the place I work, starting to develop a good filter now will become very useful. If I have kids, I don’t want to be like my dad and have his 4 year old swear at him. All in all, I think it’s better to try to avoid swearing.