Making the World a Better Place

(Note: The following essay was written by AFS scholarship student Riddhi Gupta, an AFS scholarship student from India who attends Batavia High School. To learn more about hosting a foreign exchange student in our area, visit https://www.afsusa.org/host-fa...)

The goal of the leadership project with the cluster was to collect donations for the Hesed house.
We all were asked to do a donation drive individually at a place we saw fit to collect donations for people who were transitioning from Hesed house into their new homes.

The plan that first came to mind was to put flyers in people’s mailboxes in the neighborhood and set the drop-off location as our home itself. Soon, when I discussed the project with my host family and cluster coordinators, I realized that this would make collection harder as the neighborhood is not a part of an organization or group in which people meet regularly or have the opportunity to ask questions -- which in turn could lead to fewer donations and make it harder for me to publicize the drive.

This led me to think of a group/community, and I decided to put up a box in the church my host family goes to. I tried to keep the deadlines that our coordinators suggested at the top of my mind, so I completed making a flier by Jan. 27.

I asked my host family who to contact in the church so that the fliers can be put around, given to people and so that information about the drive could be put in the bulletin. The person I contacted helped in printing the fliers and putting them in the bulletin. The next Sunday, Jan. 29, the pastor made an announcement about the donation drive, and everybody in the church read the blurb in the bulletin and received the flier.

The last day of the donation drive was on March 5. The outcome was very positive. We were able to collect a huge amount of donations for the Hesed house, and the results amazed me.

People were very supportive and kind, which made this drive a huge success. On March 12, after the sermon, I got up to the stage and thanked everyone for their kindness and for participating!

I learned that to make anything a success, one needs help from others, and it is important to talk things through and plan ahead. Although I am a big procrastinator, keeping deadlines to make fliers and put up the box helped in making this happen.