Take Action Project

Our Journey book was based off of healthy living and how there are different aspects to think about when purchasing and buying food. So when we thought of a Take Action Project related to that, which could also help the community, we thought of feeding our local homeless shelter! There were many steps to achieving our goal but together we did it.

We first thought of what we could make that would taste good, be healthy, and something that wouldn’t hurt our wallets too much. We took into perspective what we would want to eat and tried to incorporate that into the project. We took a vote and came up with the menu: Turkey sandwiches, fruit salad, potato salad, chicken noodle soup, and e’clairs (made by the younger girls). After, we went to Costco, checked prices and then developed a budget.

Money was one of the biggest factors in accomplishing our project. A couple years ago, we fundraised at the Noble Fall Festival to raise money for a different project and since we made a good amount of profit from that, we decided to do it again! We sold hot dogs and Thai tea. Altogether we made around two hundred dollars. We split it with Colette rounding everything to about a hundred dollars. After some more discussion about money, Chi Phuong generously offered us another hundred dollars. We were set to go with the money.

Two days before we were scheduled to serve the homeless shelter, we went to Costco to buy the food. Nancy’s dad helped us pick out the right fruit, vegetables, and chicken because we had no idea how to. Thenwe stored it at Tiffany’s house so we could later cook it there. The following day, Anna and I went over to Tiffany’s house to help prepare the food. We cut fruit and made the potato salad. Kim’s mom made all of the chicken soup for us because, honestly, we wouldn’t know how to make it taste right, even with a cook-book.

On Sunday, our “game day”, we met up at the Homeless shelter at around nine o’clock in the morning. We brought up the food, and started putting everything where it should be. We washed our hands, put on gloves, and put our hair in hair-nets. We laughed a whole bunch at ourselves and at each other because wearing hair-nets is one of the silliest looking things ever. After making sandwiches and discussing how we would plate the food we were ready to serve.

The homeless shelter was really clean and organized! The cafeteria was nicely decorated and made you feel comfortable. The people at the homeless shelter were the kind of people I was not expecting. Everyone was really nice, happy, and social! They thanked us and said our food was “really, really, good”! People even came for seconds, which I was thankful for because we made WAY more food than we should have. Then, we cleaned up, packed left-overs, took a lot of pictures (as usual), and went home.

This project was different from any other project we had to do. I had interacted with a lot more people than I did with my Silver Award, which makes me think about whether the Gold Award will take me even further out of my comfort zone. The Take Action Project was definitely a great learning experience and made me even more thankful for the people I am surrounded around.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who want you to strive to become a better person. I just want to thank my parents for supporting me with everything I do and giving me a push whenever I need it. I also want to thank Chi Phuong because she is the glue to everything we do. Without her reminders, ideas, and support we would not be able to do even half the things we have accomplished. Though she can be like a mother, and nag us about something it’s what we need! We need that push or else we would just be sitting around twiddling our thumbs.

In conclusion, the Take Action project has taught me many things: from how to pick out a good watermelon to how to socialize with people to get things done. That is one of the great things about scouting, whatever you do or wherever you go, you learn something. With all the struggles and stress from this project, I’m glad I did it. Knowing I can accomplish something of this size gets me excited about what is in store for me when it comes to starting the Gold Award.