"Project of the Year" Bronze Award 

Helpful Hands 2022 clothes drive and fundraising yard sales

Our group focused on addressing two unmet needs of the homeless families in our community. We primarily helped alleviate the needs of House of Hope, a shelter located in Lowell, Massachusetts. Members of our group saw that homeless people are often neglected by society due to incorrect stereotypes. Through our caring actions we seek to dismantle these incorrect assumptions and help this group of people feel cared for and a sense of belonging. 

1. We held clothing drive for teens at the shelter. We were informed that kids at the shelter, especially the ages of 8 to 16, were greatly lacking clothes. Many of the volunteers are in this age range and took the initiative to go through our own wardrobe to find clothes to donate. In addition, we systematically contacted our network of friends and family and gathered many bags of clothes to donate.

2. We conducted a fund-raising yard sale to get supplies for the shelter, such as individually packaged food items. We took the initiative to hold fundraising yard sales by selling our toys, books, and sports equipment to raise funds to purchase the snacks for the children at the shelter.

We conducted these activities not only with the intent to help the children at the shelter but also to involve and encourage other teenagers to start getting involved in community service. We hope that if we are successful in achieving the latter, more teens will participate and help people in need, even beyond our organization