On the eve of the 90 degree Friday

Hi, I'm Ding. Here is some information about myself that I will reveal:

Senior Natural Resources major at Cornell
Working @ Project Reach (www.projectreachnyc.org)

Not nearly as good looking as Spanky the gnome
Slightly better eyesight than man in poster.

Project Reach is located in the Lower East Side, and has been there since 1971. Originally formed as a response to the rise of Chinese gangs, they dealt with mainly the young people in the Asian community. In 1985, they were one of the first youth organizations to open their doors to all races. They specialize in empowering youth through anti-discrimination, so that we can overcome racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, disability discrimination, classism, militarism, and the list goes on.
Outside of the really amazing workshops they run that raise race/class/sex/gender/orientation/privilege consciousness, they also run a 7-week summer program for young people in the area. This year we may have up to 35 young people from the community working with us. Throughout the summer we will dialogue about the different kinds of discrimination and social injustice, their root causes, how they affect us, and how we can affect change. We'll also be taking trips, going to museums, dance classes, guest lecturers, and doing art projects, flyer campaigns, and murals.
At the end of the summer we'll be out in the Catskills with a coalition of young people from different social justice organizations around the country to engage ourselves at the annual Non-Militaristic Social Justice Boot Camp.

I plan to help them organize the summer program and the boot camp by finding more events/films we can attend and by planning more workshops on empowerment/disempowerment, environmental justice, a people's history of activism, guerrilla art projects. Additionally I will be one of the counselors/mentors for some of the participants, which I can expect to be a very wholesome yet heavy commitment. I can help Project Reach because in a small organization, an extra staff member has a large and measurable effect on the organization. But I feel quite uncomfortable talking about what I can contribute to an organization in a blog. It's too public and self-promoting. Sorry.

-dingbat