NPO: Community Hands

 

     Last semester, I took Public Management 499. It's a senior seminar class, and our main project as a whole was to create and execute a functioning non-profit organization. I asked to be a director of it, and we decided our focus would be on the food shortage in Hawaii. As a class, we created an order of leadership and roles for everyone and we were able to run an effective food drive on campus at BYU-H and a food pick up around the community. 

     This is us at our first official meeting. We made signs for our food donation booth. 

Our initial interaction with the community began by handing out flyers and raising awareness on campus. Following our flyer hand out, we ran two weeks of food donation booths on campus. Since there are only about twelve people in the class (and maybe 8 active participants), it took a lot of effort on everyone's part to ensure a good turn out. 

 

     Following the food donation booths, we dropped off bags around the Laie community on Thursday and picked them up the following Saturday. Not counting the lack of participation of a few class members, this is where we met our biggest obstacle-- three other food drives taking place on Saturday. Unfortunately, the scouts had done the same thing, but according to our professor they decided a month and half after we did (one week before the event). Not to sound like a brat, but it was just frustrating putting in effort and asking people to donate their time to the non-profit and then have the other food drives pick up food intended for us. But it all worked out because we know the food went to the people who needed it.

 I made these t-shirts with help from Michael who created the logo and then helped me iron on them. (Just so everyone knows Office Depot has great iron-ons for fairly competitive prices)

     Even with the other local food drives, we were able to raise 451 lbs of food for Hawaii. It was a great experience working with the class, and an eye opener on how to lead and guide people in an organization. It really helped me learn how to define a goal, utilize people's talents and guide people to it.

I also got to write about leadership and management strategies for the A+ program on the north shore. It was a very useful and applicable class for where I want to go in the future. Here's our facebook link in case you want to follow us in the future. 

https://www.facebook.com/CommunityHands

 Love always,

Ashtyn