Hi, I’m Sharon Li and to be truthful, I do feel a little bit intimidated by all the other interns that are 3+ years older than me, because I’m only in 8^th grade. I read all these amazing essays on how much they have given to the world and it makes my organization look almost small in comparison. But I’m hoping that as the years pass and when I’m a junior or senior in high school, my project will grow bigger and more helpful to people all around the world. So what is my organization? We Care Act. This is a non-profit organization that was started a couple of years ago by my sister, brother, and me. Sure, it’s a disaster relief program, but there’s another cause in our mission. To inspire others. I won’t be content I only raise money and other items. But if I could get others to join, to believe, to care, and to realize their drive and what they want to do, then We Care Act can have done its part. So that’s why we have team leaders, who help raise money and raise awareness and recruit others to join.  Speaking of helping others, that’s what I’m driven foreword to do. I want to help more people and raise twice as much money as I did the year before. Also I wish to recruit more team leaders around the nation and apply (and hopefully get) more scholarships to support We Care Act. And those are just a couple from my long list of goals for this year. But if I want to add more scholarships, I have to work for it, and that’s exactly what I want to do by being an East Village Intern. I’m definitely going to need more than what I am and if I become more confident and have bigger and brighter ideas that I’m hoping will come out of this program I know I’ll be able to make a difference.

“Hello! We are a nonprofit organization called We Care Act and we are trying to raise money for the victims of Sichuan, China. Here’s a newsletter explaining everything.” When I saw who answered the door, I knew everything I said was going to go through one ear and come out the other. There was only a little 8 year old child standing at the frame.

I got prepared to turn around but his words took me by surprise, “Well I don’t have much, but I might.”

He walked away for about half a minute and then came out with his piggy bank. I smiled and almost felt my eyes watering; he dumped out the contents of it and placed all his change in the bucket. I shared a look of admiration with Grace and we thanked the kid practically twenty times.

When he finally shut the door, we all were talking about how generous he was.

……………..

I walked up to the next house, pasting a cheerful smile on my face. The doorbell gave out three booming chimes and not before long, a woman with corn-silk brown hair appeared at the door, but she wouldn’t open it.

“Um...Could you open the door please?” I asked, wondering if there was something wrong.

The woman on the other side of the glass glared at me and didn’t open up, “What do you kids want!?” she scowled, glancing at us with disdain, still not opening the door for us to speak.

“We’re trying to raise money for the victims of the earthquake in Sichuan, China. We were wondering if you wanted to help.” My older sister, Grace asked, as my little brother, Eric, held a box out of donations, and we tried handing the newsletter to her, but she still didn’t even open a crack. Just flat out ignored it.

The lady glanced at the purse she had in her hand and then looked at us. “I don’t have any money, come back another day.”

As she walked away, back into her house, my siblings and I exchanged shocked expressions. Had that person really just been so oblivious to everything we just said. For a moment I felt genuinely upset and pretty mad, but I realized that she probably had to have had a good reason. My little brother and sister said that we should really come back another day, just to get on her nerves, but my mother decided against it.

This just shows how some people are just not as considerate as others when it comes to donating their own money.

After that I tried to be a little more considerate to people who didn’t want to donate money. I mean, it’s not like every single person is going to want to donate, even if it is for a good cause, but everyone has their reasons, more or less.

The next day and day after that, we had much more luck and it surprised me that every single house we went to someone donated.