The One Week Challenge

In November of 2020 our CLDP particiapnts were challenged to the following assignment:

Working with your team, create a project plan that can be completed in one week and will have an impact on the chosen organization and the community you serve.

Here were their incredible results

Team #1

Over the span of six days, through personal and professional community connections we were able to reach 2,700 people of which 350 were identified as families/school connections, 17 who made independent donations, and 33 who committed to donating to Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) in future clothing donations. There were about 75 bags of clothing donated at an estimated 30lbs/bag = 2250 lbs of textiles that were diverted from the landfill and redirected to thrift stores for accessible and affordable clothing.

Choosing BBBS for our community partner allowed us to spread the message of the mentorship program, their fundraising avenues, and ways to donate to their successful programs. BBBS worked quickly and closely with us and expressed gratitude for our leadership work and the impact we have had on the community.

Reach beyond this week and for continued impact goes beyond clothing donations and expands into community members and businesses supporting the non-profit as well. The q 100.3 through support from Coastal Heat Pumps are donating a four week PSA that aligns with a BBBS campaign set for January 2021. It is estimated that 385, 999 people will be reached with the population of Victoria listening to radio stations.

Team: OMADA

As a result of team Omada’s efforts, Saturday afternoon we had collected and donated over 109 bags of donations. Of that, around 80 bags were graciously accepted by the Sandy Merriman House staff, and their entire donation storage capacity was filled. Staff expressed much gratitude and assured us the donations would be very appreciated and useful. We were left with 21 bags remaining that we were then able to contribute to Our Place Society, another organization that provides shelter, food and support for our local homeless community, and one that we had considered doing our project for. In the end, we were able to support two phenomenal local organizations.

The project impact went beyond the sheer volume of physical donations that we received and was evident in the way it brought not only our team, but also the community together. We received many messages from people showing their support and appreciation for both our efforts but also for inviting and encouraging them to be a part of it:

“Thank you for caring about our community and for helping me to participate in making things a little better for those in need.”

“Amazing! So appreciative of you putting this together!”

Thank you for all your hard work in rounding everything up!”

“On my way to make some charitable donations of gently used clothing and Christmas gifts for those in need. Thank you LV for leading this thoughtful community initiative.”

Team SIEM

Final comment from one of our 2020-2021 Participants

"The thing that struck me most about this project...was how easy it was to create impact.

So often we (society) feel that we don’t have the power to make change; we know there are issues we’d love to help support, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin.

When we put the call out to the community to help support our mission, people responded in droves, happy and eager to contribute. It was so clear that people want to help, and all it takes is someone stepping up to organize and initiate it."