Purple Shirt Ceremony and YEL Project

“The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” –NRA Chief

           

In December 22, 2012, Saturday before break, we were asked to reflect and analyze this quote in response to the recent Sandy Hooks shootings. This quote was said by the National Rifle Associations Chief in response to shooting. Is it right? Is it wrong? With 22 different opinionated voices, we each shared our own opinions to discuss how it made us feel.

            After a thoughtful check in, we moved onto selecting a project to tackle our newly decided issue. Throughout the week, we met on Wednesday to choose the issue out of the nine selected that we felt most passionate about. This was a very hard selection process with so many different wants and needs to be filled for this year’s project expectations, we decided on finding a consensus by ultimately choosing City Awareness as our overall theme. Now we must move onward! With the time to complete the project starting to tick away, we moved onto discussing and selecting a way to tackle this newly founded issue.

            This elimination round of possible projects was lead by Laura. She fantastically engaged us on a journey finding the most positive way we’d like to shed light on our YEL project issue of city awareness. First, we started off with multiple posters divided and spread across the Gathering Room. These posters contained the alphabet, and each one had about five letters each. The IYEL team would be split up and each group would be assigned to a poster in order to write a creative project that starts with the selected letters. For example, for the letter C we would respond with a project theme of a Carnival. We filled out the posters and only the one we were assigned to accordingly but with so many different ideas each group would be limited to only choosing two they felt most passionate about. When we regrouped we were all to advertise and explain our project to help others envision what we had thought of. As advertisements are, we were just as fun and engaging but also maintaining the thoughtfulness needed in a meeting!  

            After lunch, we had a faster process of deciding a project. The question constantly running through our heads was “Which one of the projects can be utilized most effectively?” Although we all petitioned for the project we thought of, we were asked to be empathetic and truly analyze what we should and could do for the transcending end product. Slowly, but surely we got through the process and reaching the verdict of hosting and creating a play for our 2013 YEL project.

            Continuing on after a short but pleasant break, we moved on to an annual tradition – the Purple Shirt Ceremony. It’s a ceremony which is dedicated to the interns of IYEL where the returning interns are to hand the first year interns their fresh new purple shirts. And thus, the bond was born! Concluding the day with our new intern profiles, go check them out! (:

-Nathaniel Ng