I paid $400 for textbooks for three classes. That's why I originally got interested in OSPIRG. My first encounter with an OSPIRGian went something like this:
"Are you interested in helping make text books more afforadable for students?"
"Hell yes."
The man who first introduced me to OSPIRG was Sam, and as I have quickly allowed OSPIRG to have total control of my life I have gottent o know Sam well and I have quickly made a large handful of friends. But that isn't the reason why I so strongly believe that OSPIRG is simply a wonderous organization.
More often than not, when I talk about OSPIRG, people ask what OSPIRG is and what it does. That was my first question, too. OSPIRG is the Oregon Student Public Interest and Reasearch Group - depending on the context 'Student' may be changed to 'state'. There is also WashPIRG, PennPIRG, and various other PIRGs organizations all around the country. Here in my chapter of the PIRGs, we have four big campaigns we are currently running: affordable textbooks, hunger and homelessness, global warming, and the new voters project. I started volunteering with OSPIRG and am now interning under the new voters project, which is organizing smaller campaigns such as the "What is your plan?" campaign. This campaign is geared towards reaching the presidential candidates to show them that young people do care about the issues and want to know that they have a plan. We also register people to vote - yes, we are those people who stand around on campus and ask you if you're registered at your current address. Contrary to popular beleif, we do not intend to harass you!
The second biggest campaign is the global warming campaign, which centers mainly on raising awareness on how to live a more environmentally friendly life style without sacrificing comfort or simplicity. In an upcoming event we will be asking people to bring in their less energy efficiant light-bulbs to trade them for the new, more energy efficient ones which also happen to have a cool twirly design, and who can resist cool twirly designs?
Next is the hunger and homelessness campaign, which raises money to help the hungry and homeless in our part of Oregon and which also raises awareness of how serious the problem actually is. Walking through the city the weekend before last I saw that it really is more serious than it looks to be from the windows of your car, and I have learned through OSPIRG that the rate of people without homes has risen dramatically in the last year or so. Another thing this campaign does is raises awareness and educates people on how they might help, and the uneasy truth that many, many people could be just a few paychecks away from being homeless or going hungry and not even be aware of it.
Last but certaintly not least in the affordable text books program that initially got be interested. This campaign is working to urge professors to use digital textbooks rather than physical ones, which could cost up to fifty percent less than what most students are currently paying. They are also pushing to get a book rental and a book exchange program started in our school, which would, again, save a dramatic amount of money for students. This campaign has already accomplished a good deal, one of their feats being to pass a law prohibiting publishers from withholding the price of books from schools - it turns out that it isn't the school or book stores fault for high prices. This problem can actually be traced back to the publishers. They are also working on eliminating useless packaging - for example, ridding books of those CDs that come with them and are very rarely ever used by students, though they do make the book more expensive.
These are the reasons why I think OSPIRG is such a wonderful organization - the people within it work hard to do good things. That is why I have let OSPIRG take over my life without making a fuss about it. I like working with OSPIRG for those common goals, and I have made many friends along the way - not too mention that our campus organizer is absolutely gorgeous.
In any case, I must not vacate the OSPIRG office, which I have temporarily taken over, and head to class with my ten pound, over priced Math 95 text book.
