How I Give Back to My Community

How I Give = Back to My Community

&nbs= p; I am 7 years old and live in NJ. I am a burn survivor. I was burned over 43% = of my body. To help my community and other communities I collect aluminum cans= for children for the burn center at ST. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston. I was a patient for 4 months and they took very good care of me. When my mom and I were looking at the hospital website I saw that if you collect cans f= ro them it goes to family’s who can’t pay for burn treatment, education and training, fire safety programs for all communities and medical equipment for the burn center.

&nbs= p; My mom is on the first aid squad so I asked her to ask everyone there if they would help me collect cans. My dad is on the fire dept. too so he asked everyone there. I have been collecting cans for about a year. DePaul high school has helped me and a man in the army helps me get cans from soldiers, churches help me too. I have collected a lot of cans. People drop cans off = in our driveway than me and my dad take them to where they need to be dropped = off at one of the Paterson fire depts.. The burn center has a few trailers that has a fence around it = that some fire depts.. have so you can put the cans in them than they take them = to get money and send It to the burn center. My mom called to see if there were anymore trailers so we could put one at the first aid building but there wa= s no more. Then we heard that my brothers boy scout troop was looking for a community project to do so we asked if they would build us a trailer. I was= so happy when they said yes. They will be starting it soon.

&nbs= p; I think this is a good thing to do because I know how long it takes to get better, how much it hurts and how sometimes kids make fun of your scars. I = have had a lot of operations because of my burns and I had to have physical ther= apy for four days a wekk for three years. My mom sa= ys I will need more operations as I grow too. So if just collecting cans can help other children who need to be taken care of I am very happy to do it!!