#HashtagLunchbag PH

Posted by Kyle Lee Uy | On

Objectives

The primary objective of this outreach program is to empower people to help the poor and the marginalized  through the production of bagged lunches, complete with love messages, as a vessel to spread this love and to share our experiences to inspire others. Although many students of Xavier School are aware of the problems of poverty and hunger, many do not know how they can help out. This project will give many Xaverians a chance to help out by allowing them to volunteer to make sandwiches, write letters, and hand out the lunch bags themselves.

 

Another objective of this outreach program is to raise awareness about the social issue of poverty and hunger that is very prevalent in large parts of the country. We wish to give the volunteers a first hand experience of what life is truly like within these impoverished communities. We want to bring them out of their closed walls and allow them to interact and hear the countless stories that these people have to share. We want to them to realize that these people do not need pity, but rather someone to listen to their stories and show them some love. Aside from this, if the campaign becomes large-scale, we may open this project up to beyond the walls of Xavier. By expanding this project beyond the Xavier campus, this means that we would try to partner up with some companies to help support our cause by funding us or by sponsoring us. Also, we can make use of social media sites and other mediums/ stages of communication to spread the message of this campaign. This will surely increase the exposure of the project and help communicate the plight of those in need.

The final objective is to bring hope to the people within these impoverished communities. This goal is actually just as important as the previous two. This project wants to remind those who are having some tough times that they are not alone, and that God has not abandoned them. Therefore, it is indeed a message of love and support that can end up changing a person's life. This will help build a sense of community for all the people involved, whether these are the beneficiaries or the volunteers.

 

 

General Flow of Activities (on the day itself) 

First, the core group (consisting of around 12 people) and the moderator will gather at the specified venue at around 8:30 in the morning. This venue is temporarily a club house to be provided by one of the members of the core group. Once everyone has gathered together, we will then set out to buy the goods that require purchasing such as the ingredients needed to make the sandwiches and the bags we will use to package them. This would approximately reach up to 10:30 am. Likewise, around this time, the other volunteers should be gathering at the same venue.

At around 11:00 am, the volunteers should begin to go to their stations either to prepare sandwiches, write notes, or place everything in a paper bag. Proper safety measures will be followed such as the washing of hands and wearing of gloves. Ideally, with the number of volunteers we have, we should be able to make around 200 lunchbags by 12:30 pm. Once this is all done, we will have a lunch break up to 1:00 pm.

 

After lunch, this is when the actual distribution of the lunchbags will take place. Depending on the destination (it changes every time), the average travelling time to get there should take around 30 minutes. Take note that if we plan to visit an organization or an orphanage, we would contact them beforehand to ensure a smooth flow of events. Once we get there, we would distribute our packed lunchbags to these people personally (meaning the volunteers will actually be the ones to hand these lunchbags out one by one). This should not take too long and including other unforeseen circumstances such as conversing with these people, the distribution should be done by around 2:30 pm. This should ultimately be the conclusion of the event on that day, but we could also allot some time to discuss about how the day went as well as reflect on what we can do next time to make it even better.