July 23, 2018
This week was my second Community Connections Camp of the summer, during Lakehill Summer Camps. This one was for students in third grade through high school, and we had 32 students! Each day of the camp, we partner with two different organizations (one in the morning, one in the afternoon). Many of these organizations have already been covered in my blog (and are linked to my original posts), while a several others I am writing about for the first time.
I love returning to volunteer with favorite organizations, as well as introducing campers to new places to channel their altruistic energy. I was honored to have Sue Stretcher with me again for this camp, and Rob Vaughn and John Trout helping to get us around town in the big Lakehill bus. Many of our campers return every year to volunteer with us, and they often return with friends. This year, the camp sold out in 45 minutes. I really wish I could lead a camp every week of the summer!
In the morning, we visited The Brady Center, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of seniors through daily meals, information, exercise, and social activities. We visited with the seniors, played 30 rounds of highly competitive Bingo, and passed out prizes. We even did a little dancing at the end of our visit (picture a giant, slow-moving conga line with our 30 campers and more than 100 seniors!)
In the afternoon, we traveled to Crossroads Community Services, where our campers did an amazing job sorting shoes and clothing, organizing donations, stocking food, and packing produce. Crossroads provides much needed services to those living below the poverty line in Dallas. They are always needing donations of men’s and boys’ shoes and clothing – please think of them when clearing out closets! We also learned that as the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB) makes its move to the Perot Family Campus in Plano, Crossroads Community Services has been chosen to operate a regional hub for Southern Dallas out of the Pollock Campus on Cockrell Hill Road.
On Tuesday, we began our day at Hope Supply Co., where our campers packed 2250 diapers and 475 bags of children’s paints to be distributed in back-to-school backpacks. Hope Supply distributes over 40,000 diapers each week to more than 65 partner organizations.
In the afternoon, we traveled to The Furniture Bank, an organization that helps families who are transitioning out of homelessness acquire furniture. Their clients actually purchase the furniture at a reduced cost in most cases, thus helping them in their process of becoming more self-sufficient. We vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned furniture. We also made Welcome Home cards for the families who would receive furniture.
On Wednesday, we traveled to Brother Bill’s Helping Hand in West Dallas, to help in their grocery store and with a special project. We bagged produce, sorted shopping bags, flattened boxes and crates, and prepared for the approximately 100 guests who visited the grocery store. We also sorted boxes and boxes of school supplies and helped prepare backpacks for children for a special event next week.
We spent the afternoon at White Rock Lake for a Shoreline Spruce-up at Lakehill’s adopted shoreline through For The Love of the Lake. It was definitely a day of interesting finds: one group found a wallet, complete with ID and credits cards (a phone call did not turn up the owner, so I will try to deliver to the owner’s home tomorrow); a second group unearthed a large traffic cone from the muddy water; and a third group hauled in a not-so-pristine Air Jordan sneaker and a china plate. You never know what you will find!
Our activities on Thursday really centered on hunger, from the “hidden hungry” served by Meals on Wheels, to the “food insecure” served by Hunger Busters.
In the morning, we headed to the VNA Meals on Wheels headquarters for an orientation and to pick up our food. We then traveled to Potter’s House/Primrose Oaks in South Dallas to deliver.
After lunch, we headed to Hunger Busters, where we made sandwiches and packed 280 sack lunches to be distributed to DISD children who are food insecure. This was my first time to work with this organization and I knew this year’s group was up to the challenge of trying out a new service partner. Our campers were amazing – making sandwiches, wrapping each in a special machine, and creating an impressive assembly line to prepare all the sack lunches.
At the end of the day, we voted to add a special project to our week. Dallas has been hit hard by the heat wave. The most vulnerable are the homeless men and women living on the streets. They have limited access to water and no air-conditioning. Staying out of the heat just isn’t an option if you are homeless. For the last several weeks, the SoupMobile has been pulling out all stops to collect bottled water for the homeless, but they need more. We decided to conduct an emergency water drive for the SoupMobile, to distribute to the homeless.
On Friday, we traveled to Bonton Farms. Located in a federally-recognized food desert, the farm grows and provides produce to this low income neighborhood. The farm extension, where we volunteered, is the larger of their two farms, where the eggs, meat, and produce is sold at the Dallas Farmers Market and to local restaurants to support their efforts in the community. We enjoyed a tour of the farm, picked Mad Hatter and Shishito peppers (sampling some along the way), and enjoyed the goats, pigs, hens, and the friendly farm dog. We learned how this community farm is turning lives around for the residents in this neighborhood.
We also visited the For the Love of the Lake (FTLOTL) office and participated in a focus group with the President of the organization. FTLOTL is starting an group called Kids Love the Lake (like a teen board, but for kids 9-13 years old) and wanted input from our volunteers. If your child is interested in becoming a charter member, attending monthly meetings and leaning more about the lake, they can write an email about why they would like to participate and send it to info@whiterocklake.org. If they prefer, they can write a letter and send it to PMB 281 – 381 Casa Linda Plaza, Dallas, TX 75218.
Our next stop was to the SoupMobile to deliver the nearly 2,000 bottles of water that we collected for the homeless. David Timothy, the “Soup Man” himself, came aboard our bus to thank the campers for their generosity.
We finished our week by writing thank you notes to our service partners throughout the week and debriefing on our experiences.
Together, we gave 1,225 combined hours of service to ten wonderful organizations dedicated to the environment and to those affected by poverty, homelessness, and hunger. I can hardly wait for my Community Connections camp next year. Registration opens in February.
