Lending a helping hand by Calvin

Lending a helping hand by Calvin - May 2019 Scholarship Essay

I have been given a $10,000 grant to positively impact my hometown. The first thing I would need to do is to look at my city, which is Philadelphia and consider the factors that are negatively affecting my city. One of the biggest factors that are negatively affecting the city of Philadelphia are the number of homeless people who are out in the streets with no one to help them. Within the city of Philadelphia, I would then look at the different sections of the city where most homeless individuals and families are impacted. For me I would consider the downtown section of Philadelphia because those are where the majority of homeless live and sleep in the streets, stations, or underneath bridges. In addition, the downtown area of Philadelphia seems to have a wide array of infrastructure which tells you that homeless are more likely to live in that section of the city because tons of people a day are out and about going to work, going to a restaurant, or sightseeing which gives an indication that most people in the area have money that they might spare some change once in a while to the homeless who need it.

However, that is not always the case, so the best thing to possibly do is for me to gather a bunch of volunteers, maybe 100 volunteers to help me in preparing the plan. The plan would be to have a mission day, where I and the volunteers go out to help as much homeless as we can in that area. The first step is for me to plan out this idea to prepare lunch bags with the 100 volunteers that will help to fill up a variety of sandwiches such as peanut butter & jelly, tuna fish, ham and cheese or turkey. In addition, included in the lunch bag would be a side of fruit which would be either a banana, orange, apple or fruit cup. Also, there would be a bottle of cool water or more, cookies, and napkins. The budget I plan on spending for the lunch bags filled with food/drinks/supplies would be around $6,500 and I would plan for me and the group to assort at least 1,000 bags, at most 1,500 bags.

Say if me and my team makes 1,500 lunch bags, each of the 100 members will carry 15 lunch bags in their backpacks or duffle bags. As for the water bottles, I would not assign the waters to be placed in the lunch bags as it could moisten the lunch bags and tear them apart, and the water bottles must be kept cool. So, instead I would assign 62 members out of the 100 to carry around coolers while taking on their duties. The reason I say 62 is because on average a case of water is around 24 bottles of water per case, so taking the 1,500/24 will get you 62.5, but adding an extra water bottle to every cooler, instead say 25/per cooler decreases that amount. The coolers are also included into the $6,500 budget. Now this leaves me with the possibilities of the remaining $3,500 because $10,000-$6,500= $3,500.

Now, for the remaining $3,500 I would plan out for me and my team to have like a drive to purchase winter clothing for the homeless. These clothes do not necessarily have to be all coats and jackets, but could include hats, gloves, sweatpants, sweaters, sweatshirts, long sleeve shirts, and much more. Furthermore, me and my team of volunteers will be doing a second go around for the passing out the clothes because it will be a lot to carry around. The way I would split my team up for doing the mission would be splitting the groups into 4 groups of 25 with each group having a team leader. Each group I will assign to scatter across the downtown area of Philadelphia which is called "City Hall." Group 1 will go to the north part of City Hall, group 2 to the south part of City Hall, group 3 to the east part of City Hall, and group 4 to the west side of City Hall. I will plan a place for me and my team to meet in the middle when we are done the first go around of our mission. As for the second go around for the mission for the clothes I would just repeat the same strategy that I had with the members in the first go around.

Lastly, if there is a situation that arises, for example where there is leftover money from the lunch bags filled with food/supplies, etc. I will try to see to make to it that me and my team could do a day 2 of just handing out lunch bags again. However, this time I would probably try a different area of Philadelphia that suffers from homelessness and try to bring positivity to that section. In addition, if there are any leftover clothes then me and my team with the supply of leftover clothes will donate to a charity who needs clothes. I would call the mission "lending a helping hand" because it will bring joy, smiles, and positivity to the people who are less fortunate than me in my hometown.