Ward Service Project

Two days after the carnival, I was in charge of our ward service project. The plan was to have it later in the month but scheduling the gym was a little crazy but it all turned out great. I was a little disappointed with the turnout of people but the main project was collecting items for Vine Maple Place and we had a SO many amazing donations for that which I'm very grateful for. 

The backstory of how this all came about was about a month ago we saw a post on our stake Facebook page seeing that there was a need for hygiene items for Vine Maple Place. This is an organization that helps single parent families with housing and also teaches them about interviewing, job resumes, budgeting, how to cook, etc. Their main goal is to help these families get on their own. They also have mental health things and also classes and activities for the children involved. They are an amazing organization and are doing so much good for so many people. The Care Closet has all these hygiene items that the residents can come get as needed. We decided as a young women that we would gather the items that were in critical need with the help of our ward family. I sent out an email and then our ward Relief Society President reached out to me and since our ward conference was this month and we were in need of doing a service project in conjunction with it that we just make this a ward service project. We kept the youth in charge and helping out as needed and then as I thought about what the whole thing could look like, I added a few more details. It ended up being a ward cookie and service social. Everyone was to bring a dozen cookies to share along with donation items for Vine Maple Place. Then I also had an area where people could write happiness cards for elderly residents that I ended up taking to The Weatherly Inn. Then the last area was writing letters or drawing pictures for the missionaries that were serving from our ward. It was pretty simple and easy to plan and I think turned out very nicely. It was great for those that did attend and we go so many donations!

The happiness cards area for the Weatherly Inn- I had Paige help me with lots of different things for this since my focus was the carnival. She wrote the signs for each of the areas. This one she drew the big poster and then I wrote different phrases or suggestions that people could use for their cards.

This is the area for the letters to the missionaries serving from our ward. Paige again drew the big poster and then the smaller ones are the names of those serving. I had different drop boxes for each of the missionaries. 

I also had writing prompts or ideas that people could look at to help them in their writing. (Picture of left) and then I had some other tables with blank paper and colored pencils for the younger kids or really anyone to draw pictures to send to the missionaries and I also had some ideas for drawing ideas that were a little more spiritual (Picture on right).

I had Paige and Baylor draw some pictures to display on each of the drawing tables for more ideas. They turned out so cute and then at the end of the night, I let them choose which missionary they wanted to send their drawings to. 

Hygiene Donations Area

Some amazing young ladies that were there!

We got some amazing monetary donations, so the next day I took these awesome young women and we got to spend other people's money for more donations. It was SO much fun! I had my phone out with my calculator to keep tabs on how much we had spent and I had the list of items and told them to pick things that they thought others would appreciate or that spoke to them. They asked if we could do this every month. :) We got some great things to donate and then I took them to Wendy's for a frosty and some fries before heading home.

Then Paige was happy to help me organize it all and she even counted all the items so that we could let the ward know how many of each thing that we got. It was a fun project to work on!

Then the following week, Margaret and I loaded up the back of her van with everything and took it to Vine Maple Place. They were so appreciative and amazed and how much we got! We got everything unloaded and I asked if I could see the Care Closet and then we got this tour of the place and I was in awe of everything they do for other people and the good that they are doing. The Care Closet was definitely bare and our donations will for sure help them out. It felt so good to see that our efforts will make a difference and be so appreciated. The person that was showing us around, told us that one resident came to the closet for the first time and cried when she got her very own deodorant. It is stories like these that make me realize how much I have and it fills me with gratitude for the life that I have and makes me want to help others in any way that I can.