March Observation

Participant Observation

            During my participant observation, my group, A Helping Hand for the Hungry, was passing out flyers and talking to students interested in our topic. We talked about our mission to raise awareness of the impact of hunger in Fresno County and throughout the world. We were in front of the free speech area and many students were walking by either to class or getting out of class. It was a beautiful day. It seemed somewhat hot, but it was really nice weather with a slight cool breeze at times. It was great to see the Raging Grannies perform and to see students getting involved. There were so many information boards and flyers provided for students to learn more about the issues. Many students actually came up to us and wanted to learn about the issue. We were doing signs for the march and when it was time to start the march, there were quite a few people. There were other booths open as well with other issues. We marched holding up our signs proud and some people were chanting and yelling out statistics about their issue. I felt good about myself and seeing all those people contributing to an issue was an amazing experience. Our goal was to inform people about our issue and for them to acknowledge and to raise awareness. Some groups had a petition regarding their issue. When we started marching, I did notice that there was not a lot of students out because maybe they were in class, but there were some people around campus that stopped and read some of the signs. When we were on Shaw Ave, some people in their cars honked and I think that brought up our spirits up even more because we started yelling and moving our signs up and down even faster. The walk around campus was long but we were all talking to each other and having a good time. This was an overall great experience and I would like to do it again. It seemed like everyone had a good time and when we ended the march, we all stacked up our signs and I couldn’t resist and took a picture it was great because all of them had different issues and it was nice to see people gather around to raise awareness about a certain issue. It was an amazing experience because I felt stronger and I was able to achieve my goal.