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I have two parts in my Passion to Purpose project. First, I distributed care packages (according to the essential needs listed by the facility) during my volunteer time at the Calgary Drop-In Centre for the Valentine’s Day dinner service.
Second, I distributed grooming kits for pets who are owned by homeless people across the streets. I connected with my local animal welfare organizations to help me distribute these kits. I wanted to make the pets feel loved, cared and pampered.
There were 3 people that helped me from my Alumni group at YMCA Community Action Network (YCAN) where we meet and hang out outside our YCAN sessions. They were mostly involved in creating the infographic for SOGI.
Planning and doing a service project was harder than I thought. I have been going around circles with my project and how to spend my grant. I have finally completed it which catered to communities I care about – animals and homeless people. The grant was not divided equally, mainly focusing on grooming kits for animals. The biggest success achieved was the appreciation received when the care packages were handed out to people, pets (low-income/homeless, given out to streets) and various non-for-profit organizations. During Valentine’s Day, I volunteered for the dinner service at the Calgary Drop-In Centre where I donated the remaining care packages for the homeless people. About 50 packages were distributed for pets and the homeless people.
There are many lessons that I have learned through this project. Mainly, this was my first service project grant request. My initial visualization of my service project did not align with the reality of having a concrete idea and plan first. With school, part-time jobs and other activities, these things made it hard for me to do so. In attending the P2P Bootcamp, watching Duke Den made me appreciate the hard work and effort poured by fellow participants into their projects despite having multiple commitments. If I had to do this again, I would make a solid plan first before asking for the grant money. I would make sure to allocate enough time to do my plan on schedule and submit the report as well.
Sophie Cervera