WOOHOO!
The past two days have been pretty good. Yesterday we played soccer in p.e., so I was happy from the endorphins afterwards.
Then, I went to Wal-mart with my Youth Coalition, and stood outside for 2 1/2 hours trying to get people to sign our paper. I partnered up with Jenna, a member of the coalition since last year, and a very good speaker--I'm jealous of her. I mean, she has talked on the news before, and does't get flustered. But, we made a very good team. Here's what we would say to hook people:
"Hi, would you like to stop tobacco sales to minors?" And then the peopl would either walk away or say "what?" So, we'd elaborate.
Some people who were smart, would say," but it's already illegal."
Well, what you don't know is, the employees who sell to minors get fined a few hundred dollars. The company could then fire that employee, and get off scot free.
There is a city ordinance that we would like to pass, that forces all retailers to have a tobacco license, so that they have to train their employees to better identify youth buyers from adult. It presses for stricter penalties against the employees that do sell to minors. And, just like the alcohol license that stores have, there is a three-strike rule. After 3 times of breaking the rules, that store loses their license, and can no longer sell tobacco.
Oh, but it was so much fun at Wal-mart! Like I said, Jenna and I make a good team. We would get people to sign, and sometimes the people that signed had husbands/wives with them standing around, so I'd ask them if they wanted to sign too, and they always would! There was this one guy with four children, and he asked us if people had to be 18 in order to sign. We said no. So he got all his children to sign. He told his little boy to sign his name, and he didn't know how. His dad said "write your name in cursive". Child:"But I don't know how to write in cursive". Dad:" just write your name fancy". It was cute. After 2 hours of saying the same thing, Jenna and I would laugh at ourselves when we said the exact same thing at the exact time. We sounded like robots. :D
With the left over empty papers to sign, we took those and are competing for the highest number of people signing our set of papers.
Today I asked two and a half of my classes if they would sign. I got up in front of the class, told them who I was with (Youth Coalition, intern at Vista Community Clinic), and told them what the signature drive was about.
So far, I got 80 people to sign today. I'm a little worn out. Tomorrow, I'm asking my band class, and my English class. I'll try to get a few more office people, but I'm a bit shy with people I don't know. I also want to ask some of my old teachers, and, when environmental club meeting rolls around, I'm asking all the members.
Yay! I got such a natural high from all this. I was so excited, that I forgot to eat during nutrition. I had to force myself to eat during lunch.
:D