Atieh 1

Hussain Atieh
Professor Uthappa
English 3020
1 December 2015
Reflective Essay #2
I acted and behold, service was, in fact, joy. As I look at this quote, a sense of realization
washes over me. I have gained a new perspective in viewing this quote. In the beginning of the
year, I viewed receiving joy from the service as only possible in an abstract way. That is, I may
not enjoy the service itself, however the feeling I get from the service is the joy that I will
receive. From my experience with Barnabas, I feel as though my perspective and view towards
the joy from service as evolved to include joy in the service itself.
In the beginning of my service, I was very skeptical. The owner showed up two hours
later than the agreed time, the two hours that I spent were spent doing essentially nothing, and
the building itself looked like it was just bought and currently being renovated. Imagine my
surprise when I found out that the place had actually been open for 32 years. Later on in my
service, as I reflect back on my initial thoughts, I curse myself for being so pompous and
ignorant towards the establishment. During the time I spent there, there wasnt much to do
around the place. We occasionally spent time cleaning up the workshop, another volunteer and I
undertook the task of printing up fliers, and we spent a great amount of time with Stan, the owner
himself. I felt that my very first assignment from Stan, however, helped to set the tone and mood
for the way the organization was at the time. I had to write an invitation letter to corporate
sponsors and friends of Barnabas to an anniversary dinner to help raise funds for the organization
after major cutbacks in corporate funding. Funding; that was the main issue plaguing the
organization, and thats when I realized a majority of our actions, or lack thereof, made sense.

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What I didnt see when I initially came to the organization was the amount of effort that Stan was
putting into keeping the place running. He was constantly applying for grants, taking measures to
save on utilities, and still finding ways to accomplish his goal of helping the youth of the
community. There was much activity going on in Barnabas, I just wasnt seeing it at the time.
The joy in the service itself came when we began to work in the woodshop. I was already
working on a personal project of creating a strolling table for an organization I was in, when I
brought it up to Stan. He suggested that, since he has a workshop in Barnabas, I bring the
supplies to the building and work on it there with him. When I brought in the supplies, we
immediately got working on the project; we measured out the cuts, brought out the jigsaw cutter
and carefully turned pieces of cheap plywood into beautiful circles that we sanded down to be as
smooth as butter. We put in three good hours on the day that I brought the supplies in, and when I
left, all I could think about was when I would come back and work more on the project. I was
actually very excited to return to Barnabas, and not only work on my project, but to work on the
various other projects that we had in the workshop at the time. Thats when I realized that the
service itself was, in fact, joy. From putting in the work with everyone else and seeing the fruits
of our labor together, I found a new sense of joy from my service.

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Action Proposal Essay

The very fact that Barnabas has been up and running for the last 32 years is truly a
testament to the efforts and successes of the owner, Stan Edwards, and the others involved with
the organization. Recently, however, there have been major cutbacks in funding from corporate
sponsors, which in turn has affected the extent to which Barnabas can be operated. Particularly,
the amount of days that Barnabas can be open has been cut down in order to save money on
utilities, the renovations that were under construction before the cutbacks in funding had to be
postponed, and the ability for Barnabas to provide transportation for the youths who wanted to
come to Barnabas but were unable to due to their own issues in transportation has been heavily
diminished. After consulting with Stan, other volunteers, and previous youths from Barnabas, the
major issue afflicting the organization was determined to be the lack of adequate funding.
Therefore, my action proposal is directed towards the organization, more specifically the staff
and volunteers, and states that in order to help combat the issue of inadequate funding,
volunteers should be assigned the job of helping to find sources of funding for the organization
in the form of grants from other organizations, setting up fundraisers, having the volunteers
acquire funding through the use of crowd funding websites, and corporate sponsors through
media exposure. By implementing these actions, Barnabas will be able to acquire more funding
by having a dedicated, active source of people whose sole purpose is to acquire funding for the
organization, which in turn would allow Stan to have the resources to run the organization more
effectively.
First, expanding the grant searching process to involve using volunteers would provide
Barnabas with more people whose purpose is to acquire funds for the organization. The idea
behind using volunteers to help acquire funds is to minimize the costs for Barnabas, in that the

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organization has people that are looking for and completing grants for them as service, not pay,
while the volunteers are able to make full use of their service and can acquire experience in
acquiring funds for an organization that can be useful later on in their lives. This way, both
Barnabas and the volunteers can benefit from this arrangement. Finding grants that would
provide funding for a youth opportunity center like Barnabas requires an extensive amount of
searching with the internet, as a simple Google search will not suffice. Regardless, a volunteer
should start looking for grants by using the internet and searching for applications for these
youth opportunity grants. There are a variety of websites that provide one with access to
applications for these types of grants; the issue, however, lies in finding them.
One resource that may be used by the volunteers to find grants is Grants.gov. The steps a
volunteer may take when it comes to this website would be to visit the website, create a
username, password, and formally affiliate the account with Barnabas. Next, one would set the
search parameters to have the funding instrument type set to grants, and the eligibility set to
nonprofits. Then, one would sift through the grants and their descriptions in order to find any
grants that would provide funding for youths. Finally, one would click on the grant number,
download the application package, and fill the application out. Most applications on the website
are quite extensive and require very specific details about the organization, so the volunteer
would collaborate with Stan when filling out the application. Once the application is filled out in
its entirety and checked for any errors, the application is saved, which prompts a dialogue box
for the volunteer to follow in order to submit then application. After all those steps have been
taken, the application is submitted and one is presented with a tracking number in order to keep
tabs on the application status. If one wants to check on the status of the application, they would
go under Track My Application under the applicants tab, and then enter in the tracking number,

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which would present to them the status of the application. From there, one will find out if the
application has been accepted, processed, or rejected. After a certain amount of time has passed,
one will receive an e-mail from the agency whose grant one has applied for, and will be
instructed on how to go about acquiring the money from the grant if the agency selected
Barnabas, or if the grant was awarded to another organization. Although the process is long and
extensive, coordinated efforts to find and fill out grants that Barnabas is eligible for would
greatly help Barnabass efforts to acquire additional funding.
In addition to the volunteers finding grants that would allow them to acquire funding for
Barnabas, they may also help to raise money by being in charge of setting up fundraisers. During
my service at Barnabas, we were tasked with helping to get as many people as possible to come
to the anniversary fundraising dinner that was being held in late November. In order to get the
word out, another volunteer and I were tasked with creating fliers for the fundraising dinner to
give out to as many students as possible at Wayne State, creating letters that would be sent to
invite corporate sponsors and previous youths of Barnabas to the dinner, and to sell tickets,
which were donation based with a suggested price of $20. We managed to sell many tickets, and
there were several people who bought tickets at the door as well. Despite the terrible weather on
the day of the fundraiser, a great deal of people still managed to show up. The food that was
served was great, the musical performance held was amazing, and the fundraiser went well
overall. Drawing from this experience, I feel that if more fundraisers were held, Barnabas could
acquire even more funding for the organization, and possibly attract more corporate sponsors. As
for the way a volunteer would go about setting up a fundraiser, they must first decide on the type,
or theme, of their fundraiser. In my instance, the fundraiser was an anniversary dinner, however a
volunteer may choose to have a fundraiser based on a certain time of the year, such as New

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Years, or a holiday, such as Christmas. Once theyve decided on a time and theme, they would
approve it with Stan, and then start planning on the events of the fundraiser. These events may
include having food served, having a musical performance held, having a karaoke session, or
even an auction with all proceedings going to the organization. Once one has decided on the
events, they must make the appropriate arrangements, such as contacting the music group they
want to have attend, contact a catering agency, or cook the food themselves, and acquiring all of
the necessary equipment, such as a karaoke machine. Next, the volunteer must get the word out
for the fundraising event. They can go about this by making fliers and posting them up in various
locations, spreading the event on social media, such as on the Barnabas Facebook page, and
inviting friends and family to attend the event. Then, the volunteer must establish the method in
which they will acquire money through the event, which may include donation based admittance
or paying for a ticket. Finally, the volunteer must decide on a location to hold the fundraiser, and
then make the appropriate arrangements to be able to use the area for the duration of the
fundraiser. From the fundraising events, even more money would be generated for Barnabas.
Also, Barnabas can assign certain volunteers to acquire funding through various crowd
funding websites. These crowd funding websites include GoFundMe and Patreon. These
websites allow other people on the website to donate to a posting, or campaign, in order to
support them financially. Currently, Stan, the other volunteer, and I are working on setting up a
GoFundMe page for Barnabas. This set up would allow other users on the website to donate
however much money they can afford to help support the organization, while the website
receives a very small cut of the donations. In addition, this set up would gather much needed
exposure for the organization, as the website would allow others to see, whether they donate or
not, what Barnabas is about and how the organization has impacted the community and various

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youths. For a volunteer to go about setting up a GoFundMe page, for example, they would first
sign up using an e-mail or Facebook account. Next, they would create a campaign name, and set
up a goal amount of money. Then, they would add a photo to represent Barnabas, such as a
picture of the building itself or the members of the organization, and they would write a
description about the organization and why Barnabas requires the funding. After theyve
completed these steps, the volunteer would then promote the GoFundMe page through various
social media outlets. These outlets would include Facebook, Twitter, and Google plus. Once the
advertising has caught the attention of people who agree with Barnabass mission and chooses to
fund them, Barnabas will accumulate the donated money until the goal campaign money is
reached. From that point, the money can be withdrawn and then used by the organization.
Through advertising through these outlets, Barnabas would acquire more exposure and funding
through the campaign page, which allow Barnabas to acquire even more money.
Finally, Barnabas can assign volunteers to focus on getting the attention of corporate
sponsors to fund the organization through advertising the organization through media outlets.
When attempting to come up with ways to get Barnabas more exposure with Stan and the other
volunteer, we figured that having a media outlet, such as FOX 2, putting out a story about
Barnabas would allow the organization to acquire more exposure. In order for a volunteer to go
about acquiring the attention of the news outlet, the volunteer would first have to go to FOX 2s
contact page. There, the news outlet has a number that one may contact in order to provide News
Tips to the outlet. From that number, the volunteer may speak with a representative of the news
station and possibly pitch a news story for them. For the volunteer, they would have to come up
with reasons as to why the news outlet should perform a piece on the organization, and how the
piece would benefit both Barnabas and the viewer ratings of the station. If the outlet decides to

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go with performing a piece on the organization, arrangements would be set up between the outlet
and Stan. Once the piece has been created and posted up on the website, Barnabas would gain
more exposure as to what the organization stands for, the opportunities it provides, and the issues
that are currently afflicting them, primarily funding. The news piece, in combination with
advertising the GoFundMe page through social media news outlets, would allow Barnabas to
receive donations from more people and corporate sponsors that would allow Stan to keep the
place running.
In conclusion, my action proposal is directed towards the staff and volunteers of
Barnabas and states that volunteers should be assigned the job of helping to find sources of
funding for the organization in the form of grants from other organizations, setting up
fundraisers, having the volunteers acquire funding through the use of crowd funding websites,
and having the volunteers acquire corporate sponsors through media exposure in order to help
combat the issue of inadequate funding. By assigning groups of volunteers different ways that
they would go about acquiring funding for the organization, the volunteers would acquire
experiencing in generating funding through the various methods suggested while generating
money for the organization; a situation in which everyone wins. If Barnabas manages to
successfully implement these arrangements, they would be able to acquire money that would
help them solve the issues of utility and transportation costs, which would allow them to keep the
organization open for longer hours, provide tutoring opportunities more days of the week, allow
the organization to proceed with the renovations that they had put on standby, and to acquire
more supplies for the woodshop.

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In the introduction you can:

Present Thesis (proposal idea)

Make it clear who the proposal is addressed to.
Present Statistics (in support of the need for the proposed solution?)
State why the proposed action is important. In what way would it help the
organization/situation?
Establish your credibility (What makes you qualified to suggest the action?
Why should the audience listen to you?
Offer background information about the issue you are suggesting action on.
After introducing the issue, explain why it is an issue, followed by your
proposal for what to do to fix it.
Cite examples of the issue/problem.
Discuss the feasibility of your proposal.
Discuss funding sources for your proposal.
Provide evidence in support of your proposed action (evidence in the form of
interviews).
Provide a rough summary of your intercultural inquiry and how it relates to
your proposal
Discuss the current mentality/perceptions regarding your issue.

In the body you can:

Acknowledge and refute counterarguments. Provide consideration of the

potential response of the audience.
Provide evidence and facts in support of your action proposal.
Suggest low-cost suggestions for implementing the action you are
suggesting.
Give easy starting steps.
Talk about the organization/govt/etcs values. Why is what you are
suggesting important for them?
Acknowledge the limitations of what your audience can do, but encourage
them to take at least the action you are proposing. (This is a rhetorical move
that shows you understand their situation/the constraints they are working
under.)
Provide examples of successful implementation.
Discuss the consequences of inaction.
Discuss the benefits of action.
Explain how to do the action.
Explain why you think this is the best method due to the present
circumstances.
State other methods in different areas that were successful.

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Be willing to suggest possible setbacks.

If the change you are going for is societal, present past examples of
successfully induced societal change, to show that it is, indeed, possible.
State barriers and how to overcome them.
Name possible allies if the audience were to undertake the action.
State the benefits and purpose of the action proposed. This is somewhere
academic sources could go.
Offer a how-to section.
Consider offering a specific plan, included researched-backed assessment of
cost/time/personnel/volunteers needed. Can include interviews with people
who might be willing to participate.
Explain where the funding will come fromgrants that are already there but
not well known, or propose a new grant?
Discuss feasibility: How easy or hard will it be to put your proposal into
action?
Present secondary sources and interviews from your intercultural inquiry in
support of the action you propose.

In the conclusion you can:

Show how great the future could be.

State how this action will not completely solve the problem but will bring the
audience one step closer to a solution. (Such a rhetorical move can add to
your credibility by showing that you are realistic about the way change
sometimes works.)
Suggest different methods by which to achieve the action.
Explain why your suggested action is important and how the solution you
suggest will have a positive impact on the situation that concerns the
audience.
Present a cost/benefit analysis.
Compare and contrast an existing proposal or action that is similar to the one
you are putting out there.