Report from the Interact Students at St. Joseph School in Hilo: Last year, we created the M.E.D.I.C project, an ongoing project dedicated to creating medical kits that included essentials for homeless people. These medical bags included bandages, disinfecting wipes, neosporin, expandable towels, and more. We also made female bags that had female hygiene products. With these bags, we included inspirational quotes and a small toy in order to lift the receiver’s spirits as sometimes little things can impact a person’s emotions. We also included multi-colored rosaries for people to choose from so that they can also further enhance their belief in God and practice their faith
This year ended up making around 120 M.E.D.I.C bags!!! And this time we included the help of our 3rd Grade class who were extremely eager to help us out and to assist the homeless. When the 3rd grade had caught wind of our plan to distribute M.E.D.I.C. kits again, they were super eager to help us out this time. Even though they are small, they are making a big difference in our community and helped us out a lot when it came to creating the MEDIC kits and creating the origami cranes! This year we decided to opt for Origami Cranes instead of a small motivational message because the Origami Crane has a lot of history behind it and suggested by Mr. Okinaka, representing hope, peace, healing, love, and longevity. They are often given to newlyweds for fidelity, used in memorials for world peace, and in this case, given to the sick for recovery. Our third graders also did a really good job at making paper cranes for their first time, they really impressed most of us.
This year, while we arrived a little late to the party, we were still able to distribute most of our M.E.D.I.C kits to people in need. When we first set up our table to start distributing, many people in need came to us, curious to what we were giving out. After explaining what each kit was and what it contained, many people had came up to grab one. However, some had trouble walking or never got the memo about what we were distributing, so we went through the effort of going out and asking people that didn’t have one if they would like one. We were still surprised to see that the rosaries we were giving out were still very popular and many people would take a couple so that they could give it to a friend or family member that wasn’t able to attend Aunty Sally’s that day. This year we weren’t able to distribute all of our kits, most likely due to us getting there late and most people had already left. But we still distributed a huge chunk of the MEDIC kits we made and we also stood back to help with the clean up like putting away the tables and chairs as well as folding and putting away the clothes they had that never got taken by anyone.
In all, our project was a bigger success than it was last year. We had a lot more items implemented into our MEDIC kits and we were able to make around 120 instead of 50, which is 70 more compared to last year. When we got to aunty sally’s to distribute the packs, we were able to distribute them almost instantly and we also had more chances to actually interact with the homeless and learn more about them because we were able to go around and offer them to those that needed one. If we continue to do this project, we should definitely make more and maybe find more areas to expand and distribute because we might start reaching a point where there will be more people than medic kits if we continue to increase the production amount.
This year, while we arrived a little late to the party, we were still able to distribute most of our M.E.D.I.C kits to people in need. When we first set up our table to start distributing, many people in need came to us, curious to what we were giving out. After explaining what each kit was and what it contained, many people had came up to grab one. However, some had trouble walking or never got the memo about what we were distributing, so we went through the effort of going out and asking people that didn’t have one if they would like one. We were still surprised to see that the rosaries we were giving out were still very popular and many people would take a couple so that they could give it to a friend or family member that wasn’t able to attend Aunty Sally’s that day. This year we weren’t able to distribute all of our kits, most likely due to us getting there late and most people had already left. But we still distributed a huge chunk of the MEDIC kits we made and we also stood back to help with the clean up like putting away the tables and chairs as well as folding and putting away the clothes they had that never got taken by anyone.
In all, our project was a bigger success than it was last year. We had a lot more items implemented into our MEDIC kits and we were able to make around 120 instead of 50, which is 70 more compared to last year. When we got to aunty sally’s to distribute the packs, we were able to distribute them almost instantly and we also had more chances to actually interact with the homeless and learn more about them because we were able to go around and offer them to those that needed one. If we continue to do this project, we should definitely make more and maybe find more areas to expand and distribute because we might start reaching a point where there will be more people than medic kits if we continue to increase the production amount.