Holiday Fun at RBJ

On December 17, 2012 the YAB along with other EAPrep students and staff visited the RBJ Center and had fun! We recruited many students and staff, including the school choir.

At this get together, the YAB helped residents make pine cone bird feeders, ornaments, and decorate cookies. It brought smiles and tears to our eyes when the residents started to sing a long with the choir. After our party we talked with the RBJ Volunteer Coordinator regarding future events that we will be involved in! Many ideas popped into our heads like D.E.A.R time(drop everything and read), arts and crafts, re-organizing the library, fixing up the garden, and we even thought of planning a dance for Valentine's Day as one of our events at RBJ.

We want to give love, care and smiles to all of the residents. With the help of our CASA grant and EAPrep students, we are able to create great memories for residents.  

The YAB cannot wait to see the residents faces again. The faces of the happy residents will be forever remembered in the YAB minds. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Food Scavenger Hunt part 2

Recently the YAB have visited three grocery stores, H.E.B at Hancock, Central Market, and In.gredients. Before visiting the other two stores we decided to check out In.gredients. In.gredients is very modern and carries organic products  In.gredients is also a reuse-recycle store where they advise customers to bring there own bottles, jars and boxes so they can just reuse them when they come back especially because they let you buy in bulk. This is also a way to avoid using plastic bags. The people who worked for In.gredients told us many secrets behind there success in growing plants. For example, the plant plots in the front have water coming up from the bottom because of droughts drying up the water.After our previous food hunt and visiting In.gredients, we noticed that the H.E.B on Springdale located near East Austin was "mistreated" compared to the H.E.B on Hancock.

What caught the Y.A.B by surprise was the fact that the H.E.B on Hancock supported healthy living and was only 10 miles away from the H.E.B on Springdale. All of us were disgusted and confused to see that both of these stores carried completely different porducts but were only 10 minutes away from each other.

Central Market was in great shape and shared many things in common with the H.E.B on Hancock. How could such a thing happen? We are all humans and deserve to be treated all the same. Why is this going on and has someone done something about it? Will anyone be a hero? The answer is yes, the YAB will continue to investigate and fight back and try our very best to end this unfair event, or at least get a reason as to why there is an injustice.

Presentation at Jain Lane Campus

On Friday, we visited two health classes at our Jain Lane campus (4th-6th grades). We talked to 4th and 5th graders about what we do as the YAB and Tiger Ambassadors.

The YAB talked to the kids as if we were having a normal conversation. In order for them to get to know us a bit, we talked about our time at EAPrep and what our experience has bene like. After that, we talked about our safe driving projects!

Even though the kids haven't got there license yet, we helped them be aware of the dangers of distracred driving and brought up things that they might see their parents do while driving! We also showed them a brochure that was created. It has information on and tips about safe driving. Overall the kids were angels and behaved as college prep kids should behave!

After our presentation the YAB helped out at the Southwest Key Food Bank till 6:30pm. Over 400 people from the community came out, some of the people who attend food bank are residents from RBJ! 

The YAB really thinks that we have made a great impact in the child's lives and we plan on contininuing this next semester! More presentations and events are sure to happen and we will be working hard.

Food Hunt: Battle of the Stores

On December 15, 2012 the YAB will be going on another food hunt and we will be hunting for common items in Central Market and in.gredients! We will discuss the price difference and other things such as location, majority demographic these stores appeals to, and most importatnly if they sell local fresh foods!

While we search, we will take note of the similarities and differences in both stores. After all our hard work we will eat a nice and healthy meal at Central Market. The following week we will be visiting the EAPrep Jain Lane campus to present to 4th and 5th grade about safe driving. Also, we will be helping out at the food bank after our presentations. The YAB is working very hard to aware the community about safe driving and especially healthy living!

We are also visiting our RBJ friends soon! More to come!

Visiting RBJ & Future Ideas

Recently, the YAB visited the R.B.J Center to meet with the Volunteer Coordinator to discuss what projects EAPrep can put together. We didn't really know what to expect so when we arrived we were surprised with how large the building is. RBJ holds up to 250 residents ages 60 and up. These residents are elderly and some are disabled. We were able to meet a few and they were all so nice! I think they were very happy to see young faces visiting the center! Ms. Farah informed us that sometimes they dont get a lot of visitors so the residents light up when they see new faces.Ms. Farah showed us the garden (it needs work!) and the library that desparately needs to be organized, and also all the space we would have for future projects


After meeting, we made a list of all the things we plan on doing and ways to recruit EAPrep students and staff for Saturday activities.We thought about teaching residents how to do origami, paint and color. Also, organizing the library.Other mini projects include Sing-A-Long, Putt-Putt Golf, and just talking with them. We realized that the one thing these residents need is companionship and we (along with other EAPrep students) can provide this! Visiting the R.B.J center has made us realize that the residents don't get to see many young faces and when we visited, there were so many smiles everywhere!

 An idea we have for our very last project would be to bring back the life in the people and make them feel young by creating one of the best moments in a teenagers year, Prom. We have also thought about a Spring Festival with lots of great activities. We are still deciding and we will ask other students for input.

For Christmas we are thinking of activities we can do and hopefully recruit other students and staff to participate. One thing we realized is that RBJ residents need compassion, love, and people to visit with them. 

RBJ Center!

Upcoming Events

November 2012

Tour of Rebekah Baines Johnson ( RBJ )
Scavenger Hunt part 1

December 2012

EAPrep at MLK Campus Grand Opening 8:30-12:00 (Free Breakfast)

Safe Driving Presentations to Jain Lane!

Volunteer at Southwest Key Food Pantry Distribution

Scavenger Hunt part 2

January  2012
Recruitment to participate in service-learning activities held at the RBJ Center on Saturdays

Food Hunt: HEB vs. El Rancho

Recently the YAB surveyed students at EAPrep and asked where their families purhcased groceries. We selected the top two stores and decided that we would put together a list of items for our upcoming scavenger hunt!

On Saturday, we visited local stores such as H-E-B near Springdale and El Rancho (these stores were selected based on survey results!) and studied the way food is organized, the different kinds of food that are ofference, and the prices. Based on our study we found out that both stores appeal or attract low-income people in the area and provide them with low quality food. Everything that was a "good deal" was high in sugar and unhealthy.

The YAB noticed that H-E-B accepts the WIC program which supports healthy produce such as fruits and vegetables. Shockingly the WIC program did not support Kashi cereal but supported alternative cereals that are high in sugar. H-E-B also put the organic items for a certain type of food in the bottom corner and it was to be priced expensively! For example: one organic product that was marked at 6.99 and the same product was placed next to it at 3.99. We thought this was strange.  H-E-B organized the food by letting the junk food overpopulate the whole aisle.

The second store, El Rancho, supported a mixture of fresh produce and deli but also supported cheap and not so healthy foods like Takis, Lucas candies, and processed deli. Overall El Rancho was a supersized grocery where everything was cheap and huge. Our study shows that we need to step up our game and fight back.

Here are a few of pictures that we took while touring:

This add for Taquis really did not sit well with the YAB

We are the YAB!

Hello fellow bloggers, we are the Youth Advisory Board (YAB) and our job is to oversee East Autin College Prep service-learning projects this year! With the help of our friends from NCLR, we have a lot in store for this school year! We're focusing on working with residents at the R.B.J. Center, informing others on the importance of safe driving, and how to support healthy living!

As members of theYAB (and EAPrep uppeclassman) our goal is to spread awareness about creating change in the community! We hope to impact the community in many ways. We, the YAB, will assure you that we will better our communities one step at a time. Stay tuned for rmore updates!