Goals and Challenges

By Madi Garvin | April 6, 2011

I find goals to be extremely important in life, regardless of whether they are long-term or short-term. I have many personal goals: increasing my GPA, getting in shape, getting a fish. The list goes on and on. But one of the most important goals in my life right now is making this project fun and successful.

It is so important to unify seniors, teens, and the generations in-between. There are many qualities and milestones in life that seniors and teens have in common. I have been able to relate to most of the stories seniors write about their adolescence and about more recent events in their lives, and I am certain that other teens can too!

By, or even before, the teenage years, many people face a new and sometimes daunting experience in their life. (I would count being an intern and blogging as one of mine.) Many of the seniors over at the Best Day of My Life So Far have plenty of these types of episodes in their lives. Michael and Robert traveled very far to come to this country. Loretta overcame her troubles with the housing authority and homelessness.

I could give you more reasons as to why the bond between seniors and teens needs to be strengthened, but I think the seniors say it best.

I have found that seniors are great influences on teenagers, and it is so great that Beatrice wants to highlight all that is great about the teen population.

Beatrice Newkirk

June 11, 2010

Generations of today

The generations of today are the future of tomorrow. What happens today will affect them tomorrow. It will be different if not worse.

So many things will be changed. People have to work together in order to get things done. They have to agree on things that concern them. What decisions we make today will be a help to the generations tomorrow. There are a lot of kids doing the right things. We need to tell about them. What they are doing and how they are making it.

Beatrice Newkirk

June 17, 2010

What About the Good Kids?

What about the good kids? Don’t they count? So many kids are doing the right thing. Finishing school. Working hard. Going to college. I have so many of my kids and grandkids working the right jobs.

All you see on T.V. is what the bad kids are doing. There are so many kids wanting to do the right thing. Lots of kids are helping people and doing things for people. There are so many happy kids. There’s a show on the T.V. just about kids. I look at it. It shows us what the kids are doing.

I have lots of grandkids graduating and a great grandkid finishing school.

I love how Brenda bashes the negative teenage stereotypes, while showcasing her own eloquence. Some teens and seniors have unfair and untrue views on what the other age group is like, one of the roles of this blog is to make these tense feelings obsolete.

Brenda Bailey

May 27, 2010

A Happy Day in my Life

There is a program in Georgia called “The Partners-in-Education,” where a business and a school join forces to help each other with projects. When the business needs volunteers for quarterly mailings, or guides during open house, they use the students from the school. When the school needed prizes or supplies, they ask the business.

Everyday, we are bombarded by reports from TV, newspapers, neighbors, family, and even ourselves about how young people are so lazy, disrespectful, unmotivated, etc., etc., etc. But we don’t hear much about all the wonderful young people struggling to just make a positive and prosperous future for themselves. Young people attending school, working, volunteering, and making a conscious effort to stay out of trouble.

I was privileged to be asked to judge an Art Contest at the area school, which consisted of elementary, middle, and high school students. I am not in any way an art critic, so when I arrived at the school, I was nervous about what I would see and do. And what I saw blew me away.

There were tables from wall to wall of the gym filled with completed projects of the students. One table had an exact replica of the Titanic with the smoke stacks, anchor, lettering, and gangplank. Another table had the Mona Lisa painted just like the one in the Louvre. There was a model of the White House, a farm with all the animals in clay, paintings of landscapes, towns, and one student had painted a picture using just dots.

Again, I was blown away! To me, everyone was a first place winner. I requested that the projects be displayed on my job, and the employees were as impressed as I was.

So, our young people just need a chance to show what they can do, and a place to do it, and people that will encourage them

We need to foster the growth of both teens and seniors alike… by joining together.