Share Your Blessings This Christmas

By: Gabriela Serrano

 “Many families in poverty cannot afford even the most basic of items. Extra gifts under the tree are not an option. For 17 years, Share Your Blessings has provided gifts for families and seniors in need of basic necessities” Catholic Charities.

Imagine  a Holiday party with Happy Angels greeting and welcoming people, Chatty Angels helping all the guest, Multi-Chatty Angels translating for Happy and Chatty Angels, Superman Angels distributing  gifts to families, Snack Angels serving cookies and hot cocoa, and Song Bird Angels singing carols. Sounds like fun, right? It is a fun event because all of these angels are enthusiastic volunteers who dedicate their time stocking and distributing the gifts.

Catholic Charities has made these parties possible since 1934. It is a program called Share Your Blessings which has provided a Christmas to children that otherwise would not have a Christmas experience. 

 Share Your Blessings has provided gifts for 17 years, and this year is not going to be the exception. We know that the shopping season can be as exiting and awaited dates as a basketball season for many, but for thousands of families in Houston it s not because they can barely afford their basic necessities.  

We tend to think that those people are the homeless that we see everyday walking around the Houston area every day. The reality is that most of the times those who cannot afford Christmas are people who do have a place to live. They are those who have decided not to have a Christmas tree because they know that they are not going to have the luxury of putting something under it.

Catholic Charities has identified more than 950 families in need of the most basic items such as food, clothing, grocery gift cards, personal hygiene items, household items and toys.  Christmas gifts were not an option for them that is The Share Your Blessings Program was created.

Coordinator and volunteers have commenced this fall the preparations to receive thousands of items that will be given this coming Christmas to those who needs them most.  They begin by recruiting new volunteers in October who will later be called ‘Angels’ depending on what they are assigned. In November, private and corporate sponsors do their magic by donating, dropping off toys, sponsoring a family, or even becoming volunteers themselves. In mid December, the superman angels ensure all gifts are properly labeled and secured for the gift distribution party.

“This is my fist year participating in the program. The gift collection has not even started yet, and I’m already exited about seeing the smiles of all those people who see hope through the gifts they receive. They see how Houstonians really care about them,” says volunteer Gabriela Serrano. “I cannot wait for the Holiday Distribution Parties,” Miss Serrano adds.

This year, the Holiday Gift Distribution Parties will take place in Catholic Charities main office, 2900 Louisiana, on December 18, 20, 21, and 22. The last party day is dedicated to refugees from different countries who are the clients that throughout the year had needed an extra support to accommodate and integrate into society.

All donations are tax deductible. With Share your blessings, individuals and families actually receive what they wish or need most.  This is thanks to the Angel Sponsors who receive a client wish list when they commit to sponsor one individual or an entire family.

 “Poverty never takes a holiday. Somewhere in our community this Christmas, there is a child who is hungry, a breadwinner out of a job, or an elderly person in need of a helping hand,” says Julissa Chappel, current Catholic Charities volunteer coordinator.

Chappel describes the program as one of the most rewarding experiences. She also works in the communications department and has collaborated with Share Your Blessings for several years now. “During those days I have watery eyes…it is just such a happy moment, I feel that I receive more than what I give.”

 takethewalk.net

Proposed Release Date: October 20, 2010

September 22, 2010

One Mile Barefoot Walk

Lead by the Tulsa band Hanson, the Take the Walk Campaign will come to Houston for the third time year next Wednesday November 3, 2010. All Houston residents are invited to take off their shoes and walk a mile to raise funds and help children in South Africa.

"Actions speak louder than words, is kind of the point.” said  Isaac Hanson

Hanson donates $1 for every person that walks a mile. Take the Walk supports five causes: access to medical care, medical treatment, shoes, clean water and education.  Before the walk, donors choose the cause where their dollar should go to. Also, walkers can match up that amount or more by signing up and agree to give to any of the five causes.

“Take The Walk is about giving you simple tangible ways to take action against the HIV/AIDS pandemic and poverty in Africa with a small donation, the purchase of a pair of shoes, the download of a song or simply taking a one-mile walk,” Taylor Hanson.

Walkers will meet at 1204 Caroline St, outside the House of Blues venue, at 5:45 p.m. and then proceed to walk in the Houston Downtown streets to finally join up again at the meeting point where the band will give a short speech about the cause.

Before each show since 2007 Hanson a long their fans have been walking a mile barefoot across the U.S. and Canada to help inspire individuals to make an impact through simple actions. Thousands of individuals participated in these walks providing thousands of shoes to impoverished children in South Africa.

Those who cannot walk, or who will like to help more, can also contribute by donating to one of these five causes in TakeTheWalk.net or by texting the word “walk1” to 27138 to donate $1. 

“We encourage everyone to walk barefoot so you can fully understand what having no shoes is like.” said Taylor Hanson

For more than two decades, Hanson have been making music and inspiring their fans to take action and do something with what they can. The third leg of the tour and their fifth studio album “Shout It Out” is here and they will be performing it and also remembering old time hits at the House of Blues on November 3, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are on sale at Livenation.com. .

“The real difference happens when you begin, when you decide to move from awareness to action,” Zac Hanson

Memo

To:        Dr. Natalia Matveeva                                                          

From:    Gabriela SerranoG.S

Date:     12/13/2010

PURPOSE

This memo explains the redesign process of the Klein Oak High School’s homepage and of two its subpages for Assignment 4. It discusses the target audience and the major issues that affect users every time they visit the school’s website. It also describes the changes made to the original documents and explains the design, text, and visuals of the new web document.

USER SCENARIO

Klein Oak High School’s students are the major audience for the webpage that I used for this assignment. Students are probably familiarized by now to how their homepage works with its terrible design. One of the users told me that most of the classmates struggle when the teachers ask them to go to certain link from the school’s homepage; it is just too hard to find it. So, if the students struggle; probably parents would have even more problems understanding how the school works. That is the reason why I choose a parent for the user scenario. This mother just moved in to the Klein neighborhood and has three teenagers who need to go to school. She has basic compute knowledge, and has heard that she can monitor her children’s progress online. The first time that she tried to use the website, she was so confused about the design that did not knew if it was an official page. The school’s honor code is difficult to read, and she could not log in to the parents section because she never found it. There are thousands of parents trying to see their children’s grades online, like the one mentioned above. That is why this assignment focuses on how to make navigation easier for them.

STRUCTURE OF THE WEB DOCUMENT

A home page has to be visually appealing and clear. It also needs to have the usual left navigation bar, and it needs to provide the most useful links. Visitors need to easily navigate through the site without having to click too much in order to get to where they want.

The Klein Oak High School’s web site lacked of easiness navigation and all of the above mentioned. Parents had to make more than four clicks in order to find the sign up box to access to their children’s information. That is without even mentioning that they had to wait for a PDF file to download with instructions of just how to log in. The original website does not have any personality; no colors. Links are surrounded by confusing text, it makes users think before clicking, and some of them do not even work. Also, on each page, the left navigation bar was not the same. What this website also has, it that most of its links lead to PDF files. I think that this is one of the major mistakes; because most of those documents have information that could easily go on the regular web page. What bothered me the most were the news and announcement section located at the left side and is like closing credits. Users have to click the refresh button if they missed something. Also, some of the subpages have all the text piled up in just one long paragraph; that was too difficult to read.  

CHANGES

Design &Visuals

First of all, I added color. It is a school page and it looked boring and without personality. The only thing good about this page was that they had a picture of actual students in the homepage; so I kept it because it represents diversity. The homepage is now an actual easy to use school page that any user will understand and will know where to quickly go. For the honor code document, I broke up the large paragraph into short ones. I reorganized the text by putting in bold headings, bulleted lists, and used spaced between paragraphs. Probably the honor code document might look longer, but it is now readable. I also underlined only links.

Text

Parents probably would mostly read the newsletter, will check the calendar, or see the bus schedule often; so I added those links to the left navigation bar. The documents on the honor code and the parents’ resources page had several paragraphs that took up space and did not added important information to the page. For example, the parents’ connection first paragraph explained that it was an instructions page and that if they wanted to learn more they needed to “click here.” That only made everything even more confusing. The major task in this project I would have to say it was to remove all the “click here” links. Documents were inundated with those.

 I also shortened several sentences. For example, there was a whole paragraph explaining that it could take several days before teachers upload assignment grades. So, what I did was to just say that same thing but in one sentence. Since the honor code redesign looked too long, I added same-page links at the beginning for easier consultation.

CONCLUSION

Redesigning web documents was an easy task after doing what we had learned in class. I knew how to quickly identify web pages that required some changes. For this redesign assignment I did not had to rewrite much. I mostly had to cut unnecessary words and make the document easy to read by adding bulleted lists and by using bold headlines. I believe that if a Klein Oak parent sees the new redesign documents, they will visit the page more often. Parents will now see how easy is to log in and check their children’s grades. Also, students will find what they need for the class faster, and teachers will no longer lose time while explaining to students where the links are.

See Attached document for before and after photos.

Analyzing Maria Alvares

Gender roles in society tell women and men how their behavior should be, what traits to have, and what they can or cannot do. People are always alert to see if someone crosses the line that defines femininity and masculinity. They are always there; ready to disapprove the attitudes that do not correspond to their gender. Women are constantly challenged by cultural expectations that affect their degree of happiness in life.  In Maria Full of Grace, Maria Alvares is a young woman that has the decision to follow or defy the traditional feminine role. She is beautiful, supportive, and nurturing. She is not willing to be submissive. She is smart and ambitious. Maria is just another woman who does not want to be powerless in a male dominated society. She is willing to take any risk facing the consequences that this might bring. 

Maria works in a sweatshop environment in which employees receive an unjust treatment by their boss. They even have to ask for permission to go to the restroom. The reason why they never complain and remain silent is that they need the money. Maria defies femininity because she is a strong woman and does not like to be humiliated. That is the reason that makes her quit her job when her pregnancy symptoms get her into trouble. If a woman ends up pregnant in her culture, she must marry the baby’s father, but Maria does not want that. She strongly fights for what she thinks. She does not want to get married because she believes that love is an important element in marriage. She is worried about her future, but not fearful of what others might think. As long as she has a place to live and something to eat, being a single mother does not scare her.

Maria does follow the feminine role at some point. She has calm and innocent looking, has a pretty face and body, has long hair, and wears skirts. She is nice and harmless, is a hard worker woman and cares about others. As a 17-year-old girl, Maria is trying to find herself. She represents the typical working woman that supports her family and tries to be a good daughter and sister by doing what they ask her to do. She represents just another woman in a small town. However, her inner feelings are not of those of an obedient woman. She does not know what she wants, but she does know what she does not want. She does not want to be dependent like her sister. She does not want to be treated as a machine by her employer, just because it might be a “decent job.” She does not want to marry without love, and because of her emptiness dares herself to change. After she finds herself pregnant, she realizes she cannot stay in the same poor situation. That is the main reason why she seeks for anything that gives her a way out. In the movie, we can see how these characteristics are what drug dealers look in women when they recruit a “mule.”

Without a job, a sister that demands economic help and a baby on its way, Maria struggles, but finds an easy way out. Her inexperience does not let her see the consequences, but her determination will make her take the risky job; she becomes a “mule.” Somebody told her that she is too pretty to be a maid. She seems to ignore this, but she probably believes it. On the first day of the job, she is asked to wear nice clothes. This is the first time we see her wearing makeup, earrings, and a nicer outfit. There is where she meets another mule, Lucy. She tells her that in America everything is perfect, “everything is straight.” This probably triggers her imagination and now Maria is a little intrigued to meet this new world so called America.  She struggles when learning the procedure of ‘hiding’ the pellets, but she is a strong-minded and says, “I know I can.” Sixty-two pellets accompany her unborn baby to the United States. She knows she is risking her life, but she also needs the money. When another woman gets caught in the airport, the only thing that saves Maria is her pregnancy.  Immigration could not do X-rays on pregnant women. That is when she uses her innocent face and sweet voice to lie and get away with it. She is nervous, looks innocent, and swears she does not carry drugs. There is where we could see how the male officer believes in Maria’s declaration more than the female officer does. He probably thinks that a woman like Maria does not lie.  This was a positive consequence of her femininity.

After Lucy died, Maria realizes that “mules” are seen as objects or containers; she knows that drug dealers are capable of killing them if all the pellets are not expelled. Because Maria is brave, she decides to run away with her best friend, Blanca, and take with them the merchandise. She knows that if they stay, their bosses might end up killing them. She once again lies to Lucy’s sister because there is no other place where they can stay. She does not have the courage to tell her that Lucy is dead, but she is courageous enough to confront the dealers. She does not feel intimidated by them, and even asks them for Lucy’s money. Probably any other woman would not have the audacity to do and say what Maria does. We can see how Maria values friendship, because she uses the money for Lucy’s burial.  The camera makes the audience see what Maria sees what she might be thinking. We see how as she walks she looks at roses, religious images, and a clinic. After remembering a conversation with Clara, Maria, realizes that all she has left is an uncertain future, and by going back to Colombia, her life would not change or improve. Minutes before the plane departs, we see how Maria speaks without words. By the look at her eyes, we know she is going to stay in the United States.

Maria Full of Grace,carries us through the whole process of being a “mule.” There are three different perspectives that explain the reason behind choosing such risk and its consequences. Fear, curiosity, and necessity are the main situations that made these women become drug containers. That decision changed dramatically their life.  In the case of Maria, we see how she struggles when she follows the traditional feminine traits. We see Maria, as a challenging, stubborn, and an intelligent woman who recovers easily from tough moments. She contradicts her role because of her strong personality. Besides everything that happens around her life, she never looks down and never surrenders. These attitudes are not often attributed to women, so she easily gets into trouble because of that, but also those attitudes helped her solve her problems. If Maria, had decided to keep contradicting women’s roles, she could have had an abortion, she could have end up as a prostitute or could have been keeping selling drugs.

The positive consequence of her decision is that we see how the main character matures and becomes a better person. This is where we see how she deep inside still exemplifies a traditional nurturing woman. She cares for her family and puts them first. All of her decisions are because of them. She wants to be a good daughter and sister, and now a mother. In this case we see how drug dealing was Maria’s challenge. In reality, there are many other problems women face; rape, dead of a love one, sexual harassment, bad treatment at work, physical and verbal abuse, or even high social expectations. Maria shows how someone can be feminine but never a weak woman.