In high school I was part of the Diversity Awareness Club, a club dedicated to providing a safe space for personal personal expression and hosting discussions about current events and issues every week. This club was really the start of my interest in being involved with our local community and how open discussions between people of different backgrounds can affect your world view. One of the long-running fundraisers we had within the club was for Genesis House; a nearby shelter for those facing domestic violence, with their primary focus being women and children.
Every year during spring our club would run a drive for whatever items they needed at the time, usually including hygiene items, diapers, sanitary supplies, and such. The club had pause the drive for my sophomore and junior year due to Covid regulations, but we were able to continue it my senior year as club president. While I was very excited to start running the drive again, I was a little lost on where to start. In the past there had always been Juniors and Sophomores involved in organizing the drive so they could continue the tradition the next year, but as it was three years ago that the drive was held and we had gone through several advisor changes in those years I wasn’t quite sure how to start doing a charity drive, let alone how to run it and donate it. Luckily I had the help of my other club officers and we were able to call Genesis house to ask what they needed, and the people over there were very happy to give us tips on running the drive. At the end of the drive we were able to drive up to their donation drop-off location in Lorain to give them the three boxes worth of supplies we had collected.
While it was just three boxes of tissues, toilet paper, shampoo, and whatnot, The experience still left a big impact on me. It isn’t a lot on the individual scale, but I think with these things especially its about the build up from all of the fundraisers and drives that go on. One high school club collecting three boxes of supplies isn’t much alone, but if a few clubs in every high school all fundraise and help local organizations the impact on the local community is huge.
For this reason I am classifying this event under the “Positive Social Change” pillar. Sure, service, community, and advocacy were all involved in the process, but I think the main goal was leaving an impact on the community and being able to help, even if it was just some shampoo and diapers.
