John Yowan                                                                                                                 Hour 1

Ms. Keeley                                                                                                                  Type 3

Freshman English                                                                                                                     

22 February 2003

    

            The movie Pay it Forward starts out on the first day of the school year for Trevor McKinney. Trevor's social studies teacher, Eugene Simenot gave his class an assignment. It was to come up with an idea on how to change the world and put it into action. Trevor came up with an idea and described his idea this way to his teacher and the class "You see, I do something real good for three people. And then when they ask how they can pay it back, I say they have to pay it forward to three more people each. So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven." Trevor called it Pay If Forward.

The first person that Trevor decided to help was a homeless man. On his way home from school one day Trevor stopped at a place where a lot of homeless people lived at and picks one man and invites the man back to his house to live for a while. Trevor tells the homeless man that he can stay in their garage. That night Trevor's mom was late getting home from work so Trevor gave the homeless man some food. When Trevor's mom, Arlene, an alcoholic waitress found out about this the next morning she got very angry because she did not like the idea of a homeless man staying at her house. Arlene told the man that he has to get out of the house. The man did not leave right away, instead he stayed in the garage and fixed the truck that Arlene had. After fixing the truck the man ended up leaving.

Later in the movie Arlene asked Trevor why he had invited the homeless man into their house. Trevor told her about his assignment that he received at school from his Social Studies teacher. That same day Trevor's mom went to the school to talk to the Teacher, Mr. Simenot about the assignment. When Mr. Simenot told Arlene that he did not expect any of the children in the class to actually complete the assignment she got angry with him and told him that when Trevor was told to do something that he would not stop until he got it right no matter what.

A few days later the class shared their ideas on how they could change the world. Most of the ideas were not very good, for example, one child in the class had an idea of making an internet site that told all the kids in China to jump at the same time, this was supposed to knock the earth out of orbit. Trevor's idea was favored over all of the others. A few days later Trevor decided to make Mr. Simenot the next person that he would help in the Pay it Forward project. The next day Trevor gave a note that he had written himself to the teacher. The note was supposed to look like Trevor's mother had written it. The note requested that Mr Simenot come over to meet Arlene at her house so that she could talk to him about Trevor. Trevor had also given a note to his mother that was supposedly written by Mr. Simenot, but in reality was written by Trevor. This note asked Arlene if he could come over to her house to have a talk about Trevor. The next night Mr. Simenot went to Trevor's house to have a talk with Arlene. When they realized what had happened Mr. Simenot decided to leave.

The next thing that happens in the story takes place about a week later. Trevor had decided to run away from home because his mother hit him. When his mom noticed that he was gong she called Mr. Simenot for help because she needed him to drive her while she looked. After Mr. Simenot picked her up he took her to the bus station where they found Trevor.

A few days later Arlene starts to go out with Eugene. On the first date she was late and she got worried because Trevor told her that when a person is late Mr. Simenot thinks that means the person dose not respect him so she went as fast as she could. When she finally got there she was very worried that he would hot like her because she was late. When she finally saw him she yelled, "I respect you" to him and she apologized to him. He forgave her and they hade a great date. After that evening they decided to start dating.

One day when Mr. Simenot was at their house Trevor's dad came back. When he got their Mr. Simenot left. After that his dad asked Arlene if he could stay with her and she said yes because he was sober and he had told her that he would not get drunk any more. This made Trevor very angry with his mother and he refused to come out of his room or talk to his dad. That evening Trevor's dad got drunk and hit his mother, they ended up getting into an argument and Arlene kicked him out of the house.

A few days later Arlene went out to find her mother who was an alcoholic homeless woman who lived in her car. Once Arlene found her she forgave her mom for everything she had done wrong. Arlene invited her mom to Trevor's birthday party as long as she promised to stay sober whenever she was around Trevor.

Soon after his birthday Trevor was interviewed by a reporter about the Pay it Forward project. After the interview Trevor saw two older boys beating up a younger boy in the parking lot of the school, so he ran into them with his bike to try and stop them. One of the kids got mad at Trevor and ended up stabbing and killing him.

Because of Trevor McKinney the Pay It Forward project started happing all around the world and changed many lives for the better.

This movie was fictional but this is really happening around the world. I think that the characters in the movie Pay It Forward are very realistic. There are people every ware that are similar to each of the characters that are in this movie.

 There is a real Pay It Forward foundation that started because of the book and movie. The foundation started in September of 2000 "to educate and inspire students to realize that they can change the world, and provide them with opportunities to do so." I thought this was an excellent movie and a great idea. I have seen people do these kinds of things in my own life. When my parents bought a new car a month ago they gave away their old car to a lady that needed one. The lady was poor and had kids and needed a way to get to work and to the store so she could take care of her children. When the lady asked what she could do in return for this my parents they told her that someday when she was in a position to do so that she could help some one else. In other words she could Pay It Forward.

If somebody were to do something like this for me and tell me to Pay If Forward I would gladly do so. There are a lot of things that I could do to help people. I could give money to food pantries to help people that can't afford food. I could volunteer to help feed people at Thanksgiving and Christmas. I could buy toys for kids that don’t have any, and so on. I already do some of these things. If I were to see someone in need I could help him or her and then if they asked what I wanted in return I could tell them to Pay If Forward.