Angelina[BC1] Tran English 1102-024 Ms.

Caruso April 9, 2013 [BC2]MEMO "At Home Within" is the perfect title for the results that will come of this Noetic program for homeless people. I find this extremely interesti ng because it's like a community coming together to help the homeless percentage . Usually, many people just keep to themselves and make sure they can stay out o f homelessness. Through my own experiences, I haven't seen that much effort into helping the homeless percentage and helping their mental security and stability . But with this IONS project, yoga, drumming, and meditation are offered to the ho meless and this helps them find peace inside while they are going through tough times while being homeless.I want to go more in depth with this subject; understa nd the psychology behind it and understand how people were before and after this project[BC3]. IONS. At Home Within: A Noetic Program for Homeless Shelters and Social Service A gencies. IONS: Institute of Noetic Sciences, 17, September. 2009. <noetic.org/ath omewithin/ overview/>.

436 Elmhurst Rd. Charlotte, NC 28209 March 26, 2013 Charlotte Area Command (Salvation Army) 4335 Stuart Andrew Blvd.Ste 120 Charlotte, NC 28217 To Those It May Concern at the Salvation Army: Poverty is on the move. It grows and it spreads like a virus, so easy and so qui ckly. With all the economic struggles and disappointments recently, the rate of poverty rises. [BC4]People are forced out of their homes and into homeless shelt ers. A man who has been homeless for a while now says, "It's not easy. There's a lot of stress sometimes, there's a lot of drama..tension you know, a lot of us lo st our homes, our possessions, our kids.." (IONS) Becoming homeless is a major c hange to the life of a person, something that can put them into a state of menta l instability, lack of motivation, just utter withdrawal because hope may be los t in their eyes. This could only lead to fuller shelters; all of which, filled w ith those who are too unmotivated to move on with the lives they have. To benefi t everyone, I want to propose [BC5]a project that I came across called "At Home Within." It is a project that brings the community together to offer services su ch as yoga, meditation, drumming, chi gong, as well as other stress relieving an d integrating activities. Such get-togethers were proven to improve the state of mind of a homeless person, bringing them closer to who they were inside, findin g a whole new level of peace. With this new level of peace, homeless adults are

more likely to go out of their way to improve their lives, therefore, hopefully, decreasing the homeless shelter population. In this letter, I hope to present m y opinion as to why this project is essential to the homeless environment.[BC6] "The goal of the pilot project was to develop, offer, and evaluate the effects o f the program using noetic or integral approaches to bringing together body, min d, and spirit for personal growth and for healing." (IONS) Shelters do a great j ob when it comes to offering the basic needs that people need to live day to day . They offer a place to sleep, for one, but they also offer utilities, such as b athrooms and laundry rooms, and, of course, they offer 3 meals a day. These are all great things and, most likely, greatly appreciated, but the shelters "almost fed [people] too much physical food and there wasn't really opportunity for thi s"(IONS); this referring to the mental "food" of the growth program first introduc ed by the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Normally, people on the lower rung of the economic ladder see themselves as outs ide of society, uncared for and, probably, a hopeless case because people tend t o judge themselves on their situations instead of their personality or achieveme nts or their potential. If that mentality can be changed so that the homeless ca n see their own potential for a better life, it would motivate them to go out of their way and change their own lives instead of waiting and relying on others t o keep them alive day to day. "At Home Within has provided something that's been missing though. A source of deep, spiritual sustenance integrated with body and mind to help people to attain a new level of stability, a new level of comfort "( IONS) This project is able to report that many of their participants have achiev ed "immediate, tangible benefits in their lives that made material differences i n how they're able to live."(IONS) If this could be achieved in other shelters a s well using this personal growth program, more homeless adults would have a str onger mental base to start from. Basically, looking at a problem homelessness - in a pragmatic way doesn't do muc h. Sure it helps these people survive but, more often than not, it does not spec ifically promote the initiation of working towards a better life. The whole idea of mind over matter would come into play at this point. If we could promote a g eneral feeling of wellness psychologically, it could influence the homeless peop le's capabilities in any sense. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuin e growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. (Smiles) If people could securely [BC7]understand that they can help themselves, it motivates their beings to do better things with their lives, such as getting jobs on their own. They wouldn t n eed the shelter to highly recommend seeking help with the programs offered to set up connections for jobs. This pilot program offers different activities that fee d into the building of a independent, confident mind. With the spirit of self-help, an individual would be able to present themselves to the public and proudly say that they are positively influencing the future we ll-being of their country. (Smiles) If the IONS program were to be introduced to shelters all over the country, there would be reports of people feeling more co nnected to their communities, feeling more able to go out into the world and fee l like they're operating from a secure base. That secure mental base is what the main goal of this project is about; achieving that would mean a job well done. With a secure mental base to support them, homeless adults would feel more confi dent about their situations, therefore being able to put aside their homeless pr edicament and judge themselves based on their own character and see their potent ial to take part in society and become an able citizen of their community. This can only mean a lowering of the poverty percentage, which consists of 46.2 milli on people. This, itself, is good news because, at least, it has not increased in the last two decades. (Weise) How sad is it to consider such a large amount GOO D news? How nice it would be to lower that number each year.

The At Home Within project offers integrated meetings for homeless people to get together and share what they want to share, whether it is their situations or w hat they plan for themselves. This program also offers mind-body practices such as Qi Gong, mindfulness, guided imagery, aikido, drumming, and wisdom circles. E ach of these practices would need teachers and that's where the outlining commun ity comes in. If the community can dig up volunteers that are willing to teach t hese practices to the homeless community, it is an example of the community comi ng together to help the percentage that is in poverty. Honestly, it is about tim e a bigger chunk of the community take part in helping the lower, possibly usual ly forgotten, rung of their community ladder. This project will bring a communit y closer together because a community can only be as strong as their weakest lin k; the weakest link being those in poverty. With the help of the community, those in homeless shelters will be able to build a stronger mentality to attack the real world and give back to the community th at helped them. Does this not then benefit everyone as a whole? The community wo uld grow and become stronger because of the extra people who are giving back rat her than sitting around and taking away from the community. It's time to step up and build upon our community so that we, as a whole, are on a stronger, higher rung of the economic ladder. I hope you will consider this project as essential to the shelter's basic benefi ts. Sincerely,

Angelina Tran[BC8]

Works Cited IONS. At Home Within: A Noetic Program for Homeless Shelters and Social Service A gencies. IONS[BC9]: Institute of Noetic Sciences. 17, September. 2009. 19, March. 2013. <noetic.org/ athomewithin/overview/>. Smiles, Samuel. Self-Help. Fordham University: The Jesuit University Of New York. July. 1998. 19, March. 2013. <www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1882smiles.asp>. Weise, Karen. Record U.S. Poverty Rate Holds As Inequality Grows. Bloomberg Busine ssweek: Global Economics. 12, September. 2012. 8, April. 2013. <www.businessweek .com/

articles/2012-09-12/record-u-dot-s-dot-poverty-rate-holds-as-inequalitygrows>.

Pre-Writing Research[BC10] What is the purpose of your piece? What information do you need in order to fulf ill this purpose??- The purpose of my letter is to introduce a project that will hopefully promote the start of a community?project to help the homeless and hope fully reduce the percentage of poverty.?? Read over the piece you are responding t o. Is there anything in that piece that you do not understand, or anything that you would need to look up in order to fully understand? What more do you need to research in order to speak more intelligently about this subject??- In order to speak more intelligently about this subject, I need to conduct a little researc h. What confuses?me is integrating that research into my letter.?? Consider how thi s piece came about. If you know that this piece stemmed from a true event, what more about the event do you need to know? If you haven t found a piece or event th at this piece stemmed from, what do you need to research to know for sure that t his article was not intentionally part of a fuller conversation? Even if this pi ece didn t come out of a specific event, from what you know of your subject, what might it be responding to? What else would you need to know to understand this f ull-circle??- To fully understand this conversation, I need to research the moti vation that started this project as?well as why it is successful.?? Read over your proposal. Consider what you said you d mention in your piece. In order to do this , what do you need to research??- More research on the project being introduced? ? Read over your introduction. What do you need to research in order to deliver w hat you promised in your intro??- To specifically state the purpose for me intro ducing the project in the first place.?? Consider both your intended audience and your unintended audience.?o Intended audience: The main managers of the homeless shelter I am directing this letter?? What are their interests? What will they gr avitate toward in a piece? What do you need to research or do in order to captiv ate this audience??o Unintended audience: I need to create a very good reason as to why this project is necessary and will be?helpful for the future of the pove rty percentage?? There are always unintended audience members looking onto a piec e. Who might these people be, and what might they expect from this piece? What d o you need to research or include so that they will be able to interact with the piece as well??- the city counsel might be an unintended audience as well as ho meless people themselves. I need to?present the positive outcomes that come from having this project and going through it?I also need to show that this project can be initiated very easily, almost without any hassle at all?? Unintended audie nce members may also be those who have written about the subject before, those w ith dominant opinions, or those who have some sort of stake in the discussion. ( Ex: If you are writing to Ralph Horowitz, unintended audience members, yet inter ested parties might include the Garden s farmers or even Juanita Tate and the conc erned Citizen s Council.)?? In order to fulfill the context and audience components of this assignment, have you looked at examples? If you are placing this articl e in the New York Times, what do you need to know about this newspaper and who r eads it in order to fulfill the CAP components??- I am writing a letter. The only research I need to do is on how to format the letter in a business letter?style . [BC1]

-- Needed a .doc file, but had uploaded a .rtf file [BC2]Refer to the MLA document on Moodle for the correct block heading and infor mation about page numbers. [BC3]I still don t have the information about your project. What genre is this wri tten in? Who is the audience? What is your purpose? [BC4]Try taking this out and attaching the first part of the sentence to the nex t sentence. [BC5]Since you didn t come up with it, you might want to say promote instead. [BC6]Rather than this being a space where you simply present your opinion, show your readers what you want them to do with the information. [BC7]What do you mean by :securely ? [BC8] Angelina, Your tone and voice certainly shows that you care for the people in these situat ions, and it is obvious that you believe in the benefits of these programs, as y ou give some strong points to convince your audience to take them on. As you loo k to revise, however, I would suggest that you work to incorporate some of the m ore scientific benefits (read: statistics and numbers) for those who are conside ring implementing these programs. One of the points you raise is that these prog rams could help the homeless get motivated and possibly get back on their feet. This would interest your audience not only from a humanitarian standpoint, but a lso from a business standpoint. If they can see that activities such as yoga can i nfluence those who come into the center, they will also then be able to link tha t with the center s success rate of getting people back on their feet. Including information such as this will help you negotiate the line between what the reader might know and what the reader might not know. At this point, you do give the reader some information that they may already know, but it will be you r job to relate that information to something that they will be explicitly inter ested in. I m looking forward to seeing what you ll work on for your portfolio! -Ms. C [BC9]Take out the URLs and fix the spacing in between entries. [BC10]?