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!