YATW #3: Agent of Change

Hi again, it has been awhile since my last blog posts. In my first post, I introduced information about the late effects of childhood cancer. Late effects are illnesses that can occur after chemotherapy. Some of these late effects include memory impairment, heart abnormalities, impaired lung function, and a secondary or original cancer occurring. In my second post, I conducted my own research on childhood cancer. For my own research, I created an online survey. From the responses I received, I learned more about the patient’s family and friend’s point of view on childhood cancer. Though I did not receive responses from people who experienced late effects.

The final portion of this You and the World project is Agent of Change. For Agent of Change, we set out into the world to help with the issue we chose. In my second post I stated that I was going to volunteer at the CureSearch walk but unfortunately the timing of the walk and the project timeline did not match. Even though those plans fell through, I was able to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House of Philadelphia.

At the Ronald McDonald House located on Front & Erie in North Philadelphia, I was a Guest Chef. My parents and I came in and cooked dinner for the families on Memorial Day; I prepared everything in their kitchen and then set it out for families to get for themselves. When I was preparing the menu there were some guidelines provided by the Ronald McDonald House. I had to have a salad, at least one meat entree, a vegetarian dish, 2 dishes (a starch and a vegetable), and a dessert. I had decided that the menu would be a garden salad, roasted chicken, and ziti with yellow rice and broccoli as the sides. For desserts, it was chocolate ice cream and chocolate cookies.

We had to cook for 40 families even though only around 25 families came to dinner but some were in the hospital and would come in later. When buying for the menu we got 6 chickens, 5 boxes of family size yellow rice, 5 boxes of ziti pasta, 2 family size bottles of pasta sauce, 8 lbs of cheese, 4 heads of lettuce, assorted toppings for the salad, 2 large bags of broccoli, 2 large rolls of cookie dough, and a tub of ice cream. It may seem like a lot but at the end of the night, most of the food had been eaten.