I'm in Boise, Idaho today for an Honor's Society (Phi Theta Kappa) conference. The last couple of days have been about recognizing accomplishments and developing people’s potential. There were awards given and information shared about service projects that are to better our communities.

One group from Utah, did a project on the sex trade industry and they learned that no state is immune to this activity. Women that are caught by this crime believe they can’t tell anyone about their situation. They don’t know that people care, and want to help them. They don’t know that there are resources waiting to help them. The group made information more easily available to both the women that are victims of sex trade and to the public to increase awareness of the problem. This action had an impact and the group that did the project developed as more empowered individuals. These individuals will eventually take on new projects and have more confidence in doing so because of the success of this one.

Another group from Gresham, Oregon did a project to bring up awareness regarding the origins of the clothes we wear. The project was called “Where is what you wear”. In one piece of the project, they held an event where all of the clothing worn was labeled so that the country of origin was visible on the outside of the garb. There were displays that taught about working conditions in clothing factories in some of these countries and in some of these places the working conditions are horrible. It make a person think about their part as a consumer buying clothes from a place that does not up hold basic human rights, needs, and respect to their workers. That awareness is an enlightenment that we do not have to support this business and their business practices just so we can have cheap fashion. It brings out conscious consumerism. The awareness leads to new choices. Those choices made by many add up and the message is passed on to others. It changes things in a positive direction, if even a little bit, and corrects something that is not right. It doesn’t change the whole system in an instant, but like turning a giant ship it changes its course to better places. Its progress. This group from Gresham won national recognition for their project. Talk about an empowered group of people, these folks are so charged up by this project and already they are talking about their next project. So if they can change the course of one ship, imagine the impact they will have when a whole fleet is set onto a better course, metaphorically speaking.

Our group did a cell phone collection campaign and collected phones that needed to be recycled properly, refurbished, or perhaps just given to a new person. The people that the received the phones are women who are in woman’s domestic violence shelters and safe houses. These phones will allow them to have a new contact number for them to conduct business. This will allow them to get jobs and child care, or whatever else needed to get them a new safer life. It also provides them with emergency system access. If they were in a dangerous situation, say by someone like their abuser, they can call 911 for help. For some woman this is a real life line. Our project helps people in the area and helps keep our environment cleaner by properly disposing of the unusable phones. I have to say, that it feels good to know that this can mean so much to someone else. It’s a very rewarding feeling. Honestly, when you get involved in things like this you want todo more to be a part of the solution to problems all around us.

The Spread the Love Project is to get people that otherwise would not do service work to see the benefits that doing service works has. I want the individuals that I meet when I’m fundraising by selling flowers to know that it’s easy to do something that contributes to the greater good and that contribution will have a positive effect on the person that is doing the volunteering. Plus it helps everyone else too. I’d like to see service work increase in Portland by 15%. I’m excited about that goal and I can’t wait to get out there and see how people react to my message. I plan on blogging about people’s reactions, so if you’re curious too, check back often.

I’m also looking forward to doing some service work overseas. My plan is to earn enough money by selling flowers to pay for airfare to a destination like Haiti or Peru. I’d like to lend a hand in something far away as well as local volunteer actions. I like to do both environmental and humanitarian work. I’m not certain at the moment where the volunteer trip will be, but I’ll know in week.

This conference will be over tomorrow and I’m going to leave with the knowledge that of all these people that found ways to give. Their topics were varied but all meaningful. It inspires me.