Here's how we're taking action in our community:
My mom told me that her friends in El Salvador needed stuffed animals for hospital and orphanage visitations. I decided to ask my friends in my school Arroyo Elementary School and church Village Church of Irvine to donate their gently used or new stuffed animals to the cause.
Here's how we got the idea:
My mom takes teams to serve in El Salvador every year. I have helped with other projects in the past and this year we decided to collect stuffed animals for kids.
These are the steps we took:
1. My brother and I made a box for stuffed animals and took it to our school
2. We spoke at our school about the need to collect stuffed animals
3. We put up flyers around the school
4. We collected stuffed animals from the donations box each day and brought them home
5. We spoke in the kids classes at our church and also in front of the big church
6. We collected stuffed animals at our church
7. We sorted the stuffed animals and have collected nearly 1,000!
Here are some of the results:
We challenged Arroyo Elementary School to donate 100 stuffed animals and received over 400! We asked our church to help and received 600 more! In total, our mom will take around 1,000 stuffed animals to El Salvador!
These are the people who volunteered with me:
My friends, My family, An organization
One of the coolest things that happened during my project was:
We got to speak to the kids in our church about helping other kids. The kids were really excited and even brought other donations like toys to give away.
One of the most important things I learned was:
Its important to help others. Many kids have no stuffed animals and most American kids have way too many. Were happy that well make so many kids in El Salvador so happy!