Speech

Good Evening my name Kara Blankinship and for my senior project I had a hard time

deciding what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to help my community but I didn’t know how I

wanted to accomplish this idea. During the summer I helped with my church food drive and

clothing drive and I remembered how great I felt after helping with my church, and talking to my

Pastor, I knew I wanted to feed and give clothes to the community.

To do this I needed help I needed to set a date, place, and I need to figure out where I

would get everything I needed and also I would need volunteers. By talking to my Pastor I knew

I could do this with his help and my church family. We started collecting food and clothing with

donations from the church and their family and friends. The majority of the food is bought from

a shipping company that sells its damaged boxes at the end of every month. This is food that

either did not get shipped or the box it was in got damaged but did not damage the food. With

the date set and place, the day had came that I would be doing something to help change mine

and other peoples life’s around me.

Set up with all the donations we had to separate and organize the day. We had to figure

away to make everything run as smooth as possible. When the food truck arrived it had 15 tons

of food on it. This was seven pallets that had to be unloaded by hand. We set up a daisy chain

system where one person would hand to the next and so on. Once inside we used long tables to

set the food out on. Everything had its own spot. Then we would take bags and just walk down

the line filling the bags.

The church uses a system of handing out flyers and the internet to get the message out

about they’re food drives and clothes handouts so the parking lot starts filling with cars. The

church also delivers food to those who cannot get to the church. They also deliver food to the

senior center.

The clothes drive is an awesome sight in itself. The church takes clothing donations all

the time they never stop dropping clothes off. All of the clothes are taken and separated by size

and gender. All of the clothes are washed and folded and laid out on tables. As the people come

through the door they are given a book of tickets, five to a book per person. That person uses the

tickets to redeem for an article of clothing. The tickets just help us keep up with how many

articles are being given away. On this day I helped hand out over 700 Pieces of clothing to needy

people who otherwise have no other means to afford clothing.

Without my project facilitator I couldn’t have done half of what I did. A big thank you to

Gary Lamb. Gary has been my Pastor for the last year and he has changed mine and many others

life. Gary Lamb has been a Pastor for the last 15 years, he is amazing and I couldn’t have

reached the feeling I have got without him.

I got a great feeling in doing this project; I never had a feeling like I did this day. Helping

others is the best feeling I could have ever had. My heart was felled with joy and happiness.

Every three months we hold a food and clothing drive at my church. Each month we have a

clothing drive also at my church and each month and every three months I try to lend a hand to

help to serve our community.

I believe that every student should have an experience like this, by volunteering and

helping in our community. Just the feeling you get when you know who have done something to

make someone’s day, it puts a smile on your face. If I can do something every day to make

someone smile I try my best.

Thank you for taking time out of your day to come out and listen to me and see what I did

for my senior project. Thank you and I hope you have a nice night. Any questions?