Claire Hopper
Alcott Middle School
Norman, OK
Good morning! My name is Claire Hopper and I go to Alcott Middle School in Norman, Oklahoma.
First of all, I want to thank you all and I want to thank Generation Citizen for this opportunity on being apart of Civics Day. I also want to thank Ms. Maynard and Ms. Sidler for helping our class achieve our goal. This has been an incredible journey, from picking our issue to working on our Project Board to creating friendships with new people. Generation Citizen has taught our class lots of things including how to interact with important people, how to conduct research properly and how to develop new friendships. The most valuable thing we learned was you can help your community even when you think you’re too young or not as qualified as others. At first, I didn’t think we would come this far but, here we are.
In our community, It is important to let youth voice their opinions because we are the next generation———We are the ones who will be the next presidents, lawmakers, teachers, and scientists. We are the next world changers. This program gives students the opportunity to make a change at such a young age.
When our class began the project we were not talkative and did not know each other well. Through our project, we started sharing our ideas. Now, we work together as a whole and have grown closer. When calling experts, we took turns and learned how to work together as a team. I am so grateful for this experience bringing our class together. We all came from different backgrounds and it was neat to voice our opinions and join together to make a difference in our community.
Working on creating a program to help kids on free and reduced plans was hard. It required focus and attention on what we were doing, especially when we were around experts, but it was all worth it.
51% of kids in our state go home hungry. That is too many, our program is going to help the needs of teens in our community. Kids not getting enough food and nutrition is a big issue that our community is currently facing and I’m proud of all the hard work that we did as a class to come up with a solution to our issue. Our solution is creating a program for kids on free and reduced lunch that will provide a 25% discount from restaurants in our community.
Overall, Generation Citizen was an amazing experience that I would do again if I got the opportunity. Thank you again for taking the time to come to Civics Day to listen to our stories and our work.