ib humanitarian night -kayla kelsey

This activity relates to the NHS purpose because it directly correlates to developing character within our students at Hillcrest. The recognition of individuals who may be less fortunate than us creates students with a world perspective that are willing to help others. From this experience, I learned that there is always something we can do as a community to help others. Despite the difficulty of gathering supplies and the language barriers we were faced with, we were still able to run a very successful event. This activity was hosted by our IB program in which we collected food and clothing for local refugees in the Salt Lake area. As an IB officer, we were responsible for visiting the families and assessing what they needed based on the size of their families and origin. Afterward, we advertised our cause and collected an impressive amount of supplies. On November 7, we ran a humanitarian night in which we sorted the clothes for the families and organized everything. A week later we visited the families again and dropped off all the clothes, food, and toys. It was exciting to see the look on all their faces as we delivered everything they had asked for. I really enjoyed the activity! Initially, I thought that it might have been dull but it was really fun to visit all the families and play with all the kids as well as see the looks on their faces when they realized we had everything they asked for from our first visit. This was one of my first really big service experiences and it was amazing. Through IB I’ve been able to meet so many amazing people who all have something to teach you. I used to look at service projects as chores that would waste my time but after the humanitarian night, I look forward to all the fundraisers and activities we do! One specific experience from the event that stood out the most was the responsibility of all the refugee children we saw. Every family we met had a language barrier in which we needed a translator. This job was always put on the shoulders of the children. There was one little girl who was only 6 years old and sat with her parents attempting to translate from her native language to english in order to get all the necessities for her family. It was very rewarding to find toys and bikes to give to these children who had never had anything like it before.
“Lose yourself in generous service and every day can be a most unusual day, a triumphant day, an abundantly rewarding day!”- William Arthur Ward​

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