so, give-back

so, I'm giving back my time to Fresno by participating in non-profit organizations like Central Valley Afterschool Foundation (centralvalleyafterschool.org), ACE Mentor Program (acementor.org) with high school kids at Edison High, and recently, through the recommendation of a colleague, got appointed as Northern California State Rep for Engineers Without Borders West Coast Region.
Its great to work with ACE kids, some of whom will be first generation college students in their family. These kids have parents or guardians that cannot connect with the idea of college and therefore hard on their part to talk to the kids about college, much more to encourage. One kid said that his dad discourages him from going to college because the dad says there will be no jobs anyway due to the bad economy. The kid also said that his dad was drunk when that was said. I thought that was funny (in my head, seeing a drunk dad saying that) so I laughed, and then I realized that it must not be funny to the kid, felt bad for the kid. I felt embarrassed.