Action
During early spring my junior year, I joined the Keystone Club at the Boys and Girls Club of Goshen. The Keystone Club is a teen organisation in the community promoting child welfare and community service. To help with the local hospitals, I worked alongside one of my friends to develop a drive that would donate both used and preferably brand new stuffed animals to local hospitals for child patients. The way the fundraiser worked, any child who wanted to attend a dance that the Keystone Club had set up for younger Boys and Girls Club members for free would have to donate one stuffed animal a person. During that night, I decorated the dance at which children were attending. Stuffed animals continued to be donated throughout the next few weeks. Each day, the stuffed animals had to be counted, sorted into new and used piles, then shoved into sterile bags and placed out of children's reach. This was to reduce the amount of germs the stuffed animals collected before they were donated to the hospitals. We hand delivered these stuffed animals to all of the hospitals ourselves to ensure a safe delivery after contacting them to make sure it was okay to donate them. Only one hospital out of the several my friend contact would accept the used stuffed animals, which was understandable. However, this meant that a majority of the stuffed animals went to one hospital, leaving the rest with less. It was a thoroughly new experience being able to plan a fundraiser and carry it out from my plans. I also had to work with my friend as well as other keystone members to sort through and count the stuffed animals each day. I learned more about the ethical codes behind what children are allowed to receive as gifts when under hospital care. We were not allowed to see the children who were getting the stuffed animals ourselves, but I knew they would be smiling, and the thought of that warms my heart
Outcomes of this fundraiser:
- Increased awareness of my strengths and areas for growth.
- Undertook new challenges.
- Worked collaboratively with others.
- Considered ethical implications.
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