Pounding the Pavement
Lakeland has a fantastic event every month, First Friday. The streets downtown are blocked off, and it's a giant, family friendly street fair. Organizations can set up booths, dance troupes perform, the local Moonbounce place sets up for kids to blow off steam and families just stroll and enjoy the nice evening.
Tonight, about 15-20 of us donned shirts and talked to members of the community about the legislation to separate USF Poly and mingled at this local event.
It was a great thing to do-for two reasons.
First, it gave students an opportunity to fill in the details that can't be covered fully in the media. Let's face it, the space constraints of a newspaper and time limitation of television news broadcasts means that you can't tell everyone's story, even if they have compelling reasons to be at the school. So students shared stories.
Second, it was good to see the support that exists in the community. When a state senator puts a target on your school and says some horrible stuff because he has a personal vendetta, it really is demoralizing. The comments unanimously fell along the lines of "he's an idiot" and other things that made it clear that there are a lot of people pulling for the school. It was needed.
It was nice to enjoy a spring evening and some conversations with those in the community...
Tonight, about 15-20 of us donned shirts and talked to members of the community about the legislation to separate USF Poly and mingled at this local event.
It was a great thing to do-for two reasons.
First, it gave students an opportunity to fill in the details that can't be covered fully in the media. Let's face it, the space constraints of a newspaper and time limitation of television news broadcasts means that you can't tell everyone's story, even if they have compelling reasons to be at the school. So students shared stories.
Second, it was good to see the support that exists in the community. When a state senator puts a target on your school and says some horrible stuff because he has a personal vendetta, it really is demoralizing. The comments unanimously fell along the lines of "he's an idiot" and other things that made it clear that there are a lot of people pulling for the school. It was needed.
It was nice to enjoy a spring evening and some conversations with those in the community...
Comments