Outreach with the International Team

This past Saturday we had our first volunteer event at the Community Food and Outreach Center in downtown Orlando. Their mission is to help those in need by providing food, crisis care, opportunities for education and employment, and many other services. We volunteered along other UCF students and worked with restocking all of shelves as well as general cleaning and upkeep. 

With only 12 people on staff, the center relies greatly on the work of volunteers. We were able to help a lot of families and meet a lot of great people and also work alongside each other! You can read more about the Community Food and Outreach Center here

Fundraising or FUNdraising?!

It's been really great getting to know my team over the past month with a social, two fundraisers and a volunteer event. In planning our first fundraiser, I was concerned with picking a date, securing in-kind donations and setting up the Go Fund Me account. Bogged down with all of the details in the beginning, I forgot how much fun spending time with my team and working towards a common goal would be!

Dunkin' Donuts donated four boxes of munchkins for the event, and we accepted donations for the donuts at the Free Speech Lawn. We had great participation in the event. Eight of us were there, and our faculty advisor stopped by to say hello. We all stepped out of our comfort zones in an effort to make a little extra cash for our team. The group came up with some pretty catchy slogans to encourage people to donate. Two of our favorites included "Help a munchkin, get a munchkin!"and "Donations are gluten free!"

The generosity of our patrons was very inspiring. A lot of students and faculty were really interested in the work we would be doing in Charleston this spring. Many of them had not yet heard of ABP or Volunteer UCF and expressed interest in getting involved in the future. Some of our friends and fellow ABP board members stopped by to donate and say hello. It's always great to see friendly faces when fundraising!

The event was successful as we raised $94 and made some memories along the way!
Learn more about the Knights for Kids trip by clicking here.

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Last week my team had their first fundraiser for the International Trip. We had books donated from the library and reserved a spot out on the student union patio during the busiest day of the week: Market Day. All of the books were organized by fiction, non-fiction etc as soon as the student heard us shouting "All Books are ONE DOLLAR", they flocked to the table. There was a steady stream of students throughout our four hours and we raised a good amount of money!

I found it fun to do a fundraising event that aligned with the same social issue of our trip: Education and Literacy. Also, a book sale is rare on Market Day so we had a lot of people coming by just asking what we were all about, which gave us a great way to market Alternative Break Program and all that we have to offer.

My team is off to a great start and hopefully we will have many more successful events ahead of us!