Tag: community

  • Volunteers Clean-up Downtown Long Beach After Riots

    Volunteers Clean-up Downtown Long Beach After Riots

    On the night of May 31, citizens of Long Beach watched as rioters looted and destroyed countless stores in Downtown Long Beach and other areas of the city. The looting came after thousands of peaceful protesters marched down Broadway making their voice heard and joining the millions across the country protesting the death of George Floyd. 

    These protests have been notorious for turning violent and some people are taking advantage of the large crowds to break store windows and loot both small and corporate businesses. Organizers of the protests in Long Beach wanted to make it clear that the looting seen in Los Angeles and other cities would not be tolerated at the protest. That tactic kept the protests peaceful but only for a short time. Around 5 O’clock the city of Long Beach declared a curfew which would be in effect from 6pm to 6am. This curfew was the push that sent many of the peaceful protesters home.

    At the same time, the march took a turn to the Pike where stores like Nike, Forever 21, and H&M were looted. The chaos carried up to Long Beach Boulevard and Pine Avenue. Multiple news outlets were broadcasting the anarchy in the city throughout the night and some people decided to make a plan to take action and clean up the mess that was made.

    The next day volunteers met at Jean Machine at 7am where they hit the streets and cleaned up what they could. Sam, the owner of Jean Machine was speechless and was in disbelief as he stood in his store surrounded by piles of his merchandise strewn on the floor. “I just want to go home and sleep,” he told volunteers inside the store. One of the volunteers directed me over to a cash register that had been smashed on the floor and told me how the register “served the community for countless years and provided clothing for hundreds of residents” and “provided clothing for anyone no matter their status.” 

    There were hundreds of people walking up and down the streets with brooms, dustpans, and garbage bags all sweeping up glass and picking up trash from the streets. Many of them with the same purpose, to help protect and rebuild the small businesses in the city. There were also clean-up crews in other parts of the city.

    Curfews were set in the Long Beach for the second day in a row with the business district closing at 1pm and the rest of the city at 4pm in an effort to curb any plans for looting again.

  • Is Poly Woke Enough?

    Poly is known as one of the most diverse schools in Long Beach, but are we really living up to that reputation? Diversity is what makes this school one of a kind the main reason why I am proud to be a jackrabbit. Throughout my experience at Poly one thing I have noticed is the decrease in participation of clubs based on culture. After speaking with Poly alumni, many have also seen the drastic decline in cultural representation from when they were once high schoolers. As I freshman, I remember the beautiful dances put on by the Polynesian club and rallies for Latino heritage month.

    Now that I am a senior, I can see that there is a struggle to keep these clubs alive. Is it through the lack of publicity? Do students believe expressing their culture is no longer important? Is our workload too heavy to even consider extracurriculars that aren’t STEM related? Or are students in general no longer proud of their heritage? There are so many reasons as to why students shy away from expressing themselves on campus, but there needs to be a change.

    I believe that culture is essential to becoming more intune with who we are and is something that should be embraced because it is what makes us unique. Our upbringing has a huge impact on how we view the world around us and allows us to feel involved in a community. Without clubs like: Black Student Union, Lation Empowerment in Action, La Onda, Khmer Girls in Action, we would have limited outlets to express ourselves at school. These clubs allow people of all different ethnicities to come together and celebrate heritage. Together our voices can be heard and we can educate others in a way that feels interactive. It is a chance for us to look at history beyond a textbook and take a chance to make connections within our school community.

    Many students feel like they don’t have a community within their school, that school is simply just a place we are forced to go to every day. That doesn’t have to be the case, by joining clubs we can make friends and grow closer to people we see everyday. From personal experience, the more I surrounded myself with others I could relate to, the more driven I felt to do the things I am passionate about. Remember that it is never too late to join a club you are interested in.

  • Activists of Poly: Lauren Calderon

    Activists of Poly: Lauren Calderon

    Over the past two summers, Lauren Calderon, Poly PACE senior, has run a successful Power to the Period community service project. Power to the Period is run by U by Kotex and with the objective to collect feminine hygiene products for homeless or needy women. She has collected a remarkable total of 8,792 products for donation.

    Photo above featured on Seventeen magazine. Taken August 26, 2017

    “I became involved with this campaign because I think all women deserve the right to have easy accessibility to menstrual hygiene. This is a campaign that I joined that encourages people, like myself, to collect products like pads, tampons, feminine wipes, etc., for women’s shelters in the community” said Calderon.

    Some of the products from her most recent campaign have been donated to women in the Virgin Islands, who were left without feminine hygiene products in the face of Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria.

    Calderon still continues to accept donations and help out her Long Beach community.