2011 Creative Writing Contest
Be the Change You Want to See!
See the 2011 Winners
Are you a bystander…Or are you an upstander?
Are you waiting for the world to change…Or are you changing the world?
More than 63 million Americans volunteered in their communities in 2009, giving 8.1 billion hours of service worth nearly $169 billion to America's communities.*
Change your corner of the world!
Think about the things students just like you do now on a small scale: contribute to food drives, donate blood, tutor, grow vegetables. Then tell us how you could bring that to a larger scale to improve your community. How about starting a community-wide food drive or a neighborhood tutoring program? What about growing a community garden to feed the homeless?
As you craft your submission, think about the economic impact of your actions. What are the costs and benefits of your endeavor? What about unintended consequences-are there any? You can submit an essay or creative composition such as a play, short story, or poem. So pick your favorite category and get busy changing the world! Good luck!
Economic concepts
- Benefits
- …are the social and financial positives that result from an economic activity, good, or service.
- Costs
- …are the expenses, such as time or money, necessary to obtain benefits.
- Opportunity costs
- …are the value of possible alternatives that a person gives up when making one choice instead of another; also known as a trade-off.
- Unintended consequences
- …are outcomes of an action that are different from the expected ones.
* Source: http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov