Keep your coins, I want change.
By Courtney Costello
23 May 2008
"Come on Courtney!" Dave yelled as I fumbled with the two rolls of film - one which I had just finished off, the other I was trying to quickly load into my camera. The line we had been waiting in for hours was finally beginning to move. My classmates were growing impatient; the formally kind Canadians behind me mumbling comments that were increasingly less pleasant as the seconds ticked by. Finally I heard the click that meant the film was ready. I snapped the photo and I ran to meet up with the group.
The photo I took that day is just one of many that depict the struggle and pain that members of our society feel. Despite going to private schools my entire life I didn't grow up in a very well off family. My mother made enough money to support us comfortably but my father's struggle with alcoholism drained our funds. In school I heard my classmates complain when their parents didn't buy them that shiny new bike. After school I would go to the "South end" of the city. I saw kids who could not eat dinner every night because when the welfare check came it was spent on drugs in eighty seconds. I witnessed the tears stream down a little boy's face when the police came to arrest his big brother for gang activity. I saw how it broke his heart to know the only man in his life wouldn't be there for him anymore. I was accepted into this community, still though when my friends were going through rough times they would make comments like "you could never understand...you're rich." These comments hurt me because I was by no means any richer than they were. I always viewed myself as their equal, who lived in a different section of the city with a mother who worked hard to send me to a private school.
On my tenth birthday I asked for a camera and from that day forward it went everywhere with me! As I was older I knew I wanted to take the pain and suffering I saw and show the more affluent members of society. When I saw the beggar outside the walls of Vatican City, I was snapped back into reality and away from my vacation in Italy, I remembered the beggars of my own city, the hungry children of my neighborhood.
From Springfield, to Boston, to New York, San Francisco and Oakland - all the way to the slums of Naples, Italy and Puebla, Mexico...I've see poverty and I've experienced it. It's because of these experiences on a personal level with underprivileged individuals that I want to change society. It has become clear to me that in order for society to change then the problem need to be shoved in their faces. At every corner and every turn there needs to be a reminder.
To get my brothers and sisters help, that is the goal of my photography and someday... I hope to make a difference.
