Art in London

So, I found this while looking around the food bank website.

http://www.artsforallkids.net/Arts_For_All_Kids/Arts_For_All_Kids.html

No one can tell us to surrender

Sometimes, it's difficult to believe in a better world, especially with all the strife, violence, and disasters wreaking havoc around the globe. But we cannot lose hope.

No human endeavour was ever accomplished by giving up. Each one was achieved with an attitude of "well, we're going to die anyway, so let's do something about it."

So I lost count, but think we have somewhere around 52 bags of clothing. Not bad on short notice. Congrats everyone, but we're not finished yet! We need everybody's help again sorting these clothes, and getting them to the donation centers where they are needed.

Instructions:

1. If you get the chance, separate out the childrens' clothes from everything else (we are just sorting into 2 categories, "children's" and "other").
2. Bring in any clothes you wish to personally donate.
3. Bring in all clothing for Tuesday, upon arrival, put all children's clothing on the tables. Everything else put off to the side to be sorted.
4. Each person please bring 1 big garbage bag. And anyone who has duct tape and markers, bring those too :P (Please & Thanks)
5. Wear your interact t-shirts (Sarah, bring that camera!).

Thanks again to everyone who gave their time and effort to help our cause, thanks to the collectors who braved the raging gales and bitter cold, thanks the drivers (parents included) for mobilizing us and thanks to your families for storing the clothes.

Slow and steady wins the race.

• Oakridge -         15
• Westmount -        8
• White Oaks -       6
• North London -   6
• Byron - 
• Medway - 
  
• Other -                 1
• Total                   36 bags of clothing!

• Medway -
• North London -   6
• Oakridge -         15
• White Oaks -       6
• Byron -
• Westmount - 
• Other -                 1
• Total                   28

• Medway -
• North London -   6
• Oakridge -         15
• White Oaks -      
• Byron -
• Westmount - 
• Total                   22

We're at 22 bags of clothing!!

Impressions of a Volunteer

Today, we made quite the interesting journey to Limberlost.

We met some interact supporters while waiting at the bus stop for the 9 Whitehills to arrive.

I learned to trust my partner's judgement when it comes to navigation.

We learned the value of choosing the road not taken.

We learned to climb every mountain in our way, and jump off every cliff (with a parachute).

But most importantly, we learned to value all that we have, and hold it dear forever.

Looking into the eyes of that little girl, knowing the hardships she had faced, and the further hardships that await her -- I felt my heart catch. I knew there was nothing I could say, nothing I could do that would reduce her suffering, or convey my most sincere sadness at her pain. For a moment, the unwritten pain on her face, in her eyes, was my pain.

I watched the excitement in her eyes as I spun her in a circle. I smiled at the look of concentration on her face as she deftly fitted each piece of the jigsaw puzzle. I felt the pang of guilt at her hopeful eyes when she asked us to stay.

We are who we are; we do not have a choice in how or where we enter this world. Nor how we are treated once we enter it. But we can choose how we act. We can choose to show compassion. We can choose to give hope. We can choose to bring change.

This is our journey,

Gordon, Sophia, Derek

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year!

My favourite Interact quote from this week:

"Is it the year of the turtle?" 

Hospitality Meal Program - Post Volunteer Reflection

People who attended: Erica, Arianna, Sarah, Rosalinda, Rama, Hasan, Jill, Sonya, Jankarl  (+friend), Anna, Gordon

I was very pleased when I walked into the church and saw that most of the people who were coming had already arrived. Sarah became our first Banting student representative. That made me proud. Sonya, walked in smiling with 2 other people were not from interact. But they stayed all night help us, and I was unbelievably grateful.

The team helped with everything from start to finish: everyone helped set up the tables, the tablecloths (which are surprising heavy), and even for the cutlery. We packed what between 50 and 60 bread bags (assorted breads and baked items that people could take home). While in the kitchen, we were cutting another 50 or 60 loaves of bread to be served that night. 

When the crowd started coming, the process flowed like clockwork. Six of us were in the kitchen (Anna, Rama, Arianna, Erica, Sonya, myself) serving the food, and Sonya bravely volunteered to be our lone dishwasher. Hasan was in charge of sorting all the dishes as they came in and Sarah was helping to distribute the bread baskets. Rosie, Jill, and the others were helping with drinks and deserts.

We served hot soup, bread, desert and drinks to about 78 people in the span of half an hour.

I left early, but all in all I am quite proud of what we did, and more proud that you came to help.

Good luck on your exams everyone!

Dear volunteers,

I know it is exam week for everyone, so I'm sure we're all keeping busy. But just a heads up, tomorrow, as in Saturday, January 29, we're expecting everyone to come out to St. John's the Evangelist Church, aka Erica's church. We will be serving food and operating the soup kitchen from 3:30 PM to 7:30 PM. Please e-mail us back to let us know you're coming. And if you're not coming, please e-mail us back a very good reason for your absence.
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Location: 280 James Street  (St. John's the Evangelist Church)

Time: January 29th  3:30-7:30 pm 

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Also, everybody attending, please wear your interact T-shirts! If you forget, you will be dealing with the wrath of the presidents.

Finally, Judy, a representative from the Limberlost chaplaincy is looking for volunteers to tutor on February 7. If you're free that day, bring some friends, we need about 6 people. Please let Rosalinda know if you can come. This is the first shift, will need more groups for other days. We want everyone to have an opportunity. So let's get to work!

--Gordon

New Website

Check out our new website at interactlondon.org

Update!

For the people who missed the meeting because of wise, and illness and so forth. I will try to keep you updated on what's going via email. But if you guys get the opportunity to speak with someone who was there, you should too. So at the last meeting we talked about: locations for canvassing (the different neighbourhoods we'll target -- Alice has details, which I'll get ASAP); we discussed which dates we can distribute flyers and collect clothing. Clothing collection looks like it will be on the 26th of February, a Saturday. We'll get details on who's collecting where next meeting. And flyer distribution will occur the Saturday prior, so the 19th. But for people who can't go out to hand out flyers on that date, you can organize with your group to go out another day. We voted on a flyer design too. And the western students (rotaract) are asking for interest in a "mentorship program" meaning, they pair us up with people in programs we're interested in. I'll ask Emily for more details, but let her know if you want to know more.

Also, for the corporate sponsors team, we need to finalize that corporate letter. Email your edited copy to Rosalinda (and/or this email). We are also planning to hit Richmond Row businesses on Monday, coming up. This plan will be finalized by Friday. Also, Rosie has asked each person to pick two businesses, one large, one small and start bugging them. Post which business you choose on fb, (I'll start a thread) so we don't have overlaps. Those are our two main jobs for corporate, so pick one or both and get going.

-Gordon
ps. let me know if anything wasn't clear.

What's next? - Limberlost

Our Winter 2011 project is a focus on poverty in our community, specifically on access to warm clothing. As a team, we are organizing an canvassing campaign to collect winter clothing for those in need for the months of January and February. We aim to distribute information (in the form of flyers and posters) to different communities in early February, and collect these clothes via door-to-door pick up. We are currently in the process of finding a location to store any clothing donated prior to the collection date.

In addition, our team is going to volunteer at and around the Limberlost Chaplaincy, possibly in coordination with the Rotary Club of London South, pending further details. 

Learning about our community

Just a little information: http://www.limberlost.org/