Don’t Get My Sister Involved

    In the last months I have been working on a project to incorporate a volunteer club into the elementary school I attended. The project has been slow as I continue to run into problems. The first is contacting. When I contact the principal of a school I would expect a response and some sort of action, but not in this situation. He kept telling me he would take care of something then would pass it off to someone else's responsibility. I even showed up for a meeting (not going to my classes to do so) and he ended up not coming. Supposedly he had another meeting he didn't know about. Aren't principals supposed to be responsible?

    Well as I finally got the approval for my project ideas, an e-mail was sent out to the Gibson staff asking if they would help with my ideas and facilitate the project. My sister still goes to that school, but she barely knows anything about what I'm doing. She does know that she wants to participate however. A day after the letter was sent out a teacher made quite a rude comment to her. They told her that it's nice what I'm trying to do and all, but they believe there are plenty of programs for the students to volunteer in. The teacher then proceeded with making a list of all the charity things students can do.

    When my sister relayed this message to me it broke my heart. I'm trying to do something good here and teachers are not only tearing apart my ideas, but my sister in the process too. My sister asked if I'd wait a year to do anything since she moves on to middle school next year. Of course this is not what I want to do, as I want to make a difference now. The part that gets me even more upset is that my sister, who has nothing to do with any of this, is getting ridiculed. She doesn't deserve this. I used to respect this teacher tremendously, and with a few words from my sister about her, all respect is lost. If she has something mean to say about my program talk to me, not my sister. I worked hard to put everything together and if the school leadership team approved, I think everything is worth it.

Maybe someday all the people I ever knew will be encouraging. But for the time being I just need to keep reminding myself, "If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway."