Brown Bag Ministry by Maria Sulzen
Brown Bag Ministry by Maria Sulzen
Brown Bag Ministry By Maria Sulzen, 2011 For our Taekwondo testing, my siblings and I decided to do a leadership project. We thought of The Brown Bag Ministry, which is an organization that helps homeless people. First, we went just with our Dad. We bagged lunches and catered food. Then we asked a leader of Brown Bag if we could bring some members from our Taekwondo school to help, and they gave us a date at the end of May.
As this date drew near, we began to involve the Taekwondo-school. We sent out an email with information and gave presentations in our Taekwondo classes. We tacked up posters and a sign-up sheet on the bulletin board. We also set up a money donations box and a food donations box. We got over $40 and also some food donations. About ten people signed up to go to Brown Bag with us – and they were bringing their families. So we had around 30 volunteers. Finally, we sent out another email about a week from the date we were going to Brown Bag.
On Saturday we got to St. Andrew’s before everyone else. We found that the lady in charge of Brown Bag that day was giving a speech. Meanwhile people from the Taekwondo-school started showing up, so we went around and said hi to them. Some of the people had trouble finding the right building, so we went outside to direct people.
Pretty soon we went back inside. The first thing we did was help bring supplies from the truck. Then the lady in charge of Brown Bag that day assigned us to jobs. Some people stuffed lunch bags, and some people made sandwiches.
When everyone was done with that, the food was packed up into cars and we all drove to Downtown Raleigh. There in a parking lot we set up tables all in a row. Food was put on the tables and pretty soon homeless people started showing up. They formed a line and some of us catered the food to them. After they got their meal they would go to another station and get brown bags. Pretty soon the Brown Bag ministry began to wrap up. They started to clean up and put stuff back in the truck. After we had helped them, we went home, satisfied with our project. Later we sent a thank-you email to all who had signed up.
Through this project we learned a great deal of things. Not only did we boost our leadership skills, but we also became aware of how much you can accomplish and many people you can help in one day. Almost one-thousand brown bags were made in that one day. Also, we raised awareness in our Taekwondo-school about homeless people and Brown Bag. This leadership project was successful, and we are considering doing it again sometime.
