a day on... not a day off

Blair High School Black Student Alliance were the recipients of Fish and Loaves Food Access and Education Grant. See the project description below

Project Description

PHASE I: FOOD ACCESS ACTIVITIES

• Made and distributed 300 bag lunches

• Procured donations from Smart and Final and Ralph’s

• Gleaned over 150 lbs of fruit from local neighbors

• Participated in food justice workshop curated by MMC

Check out the video below...

From Karen Law, Math Teacher, BSU Advisor

#HashtagLunchbag has become the traditional way the Blair Black Student Union celebrates MLK Day. The service project was a born in January 2017 from a desire our students had to perform an act of service on the MLK Holiday in response to the challenge to make it “a day on, not a day off”. Instead of our traditional celebration, the group decided they wanted to do something for persons experiencing homelessness in our community. There were a growing number of people living in the park across the street from our school, which caused the students to become more conscious of their plight. My daughter suggested we look at the #HashtagLunchbag.org site after she volunteered at a hosted event through work. The BSU students agreed that the idea of creating sack lunches and distributing them on MLK Day fit the personality of our group. It would provide a fun, meaningful way to celebrate the holiday. January 20, 2020 will mark the fourth year we have sponsored this event.

One of the unique aspects of #HashtagLunchbag, and one of the things our students and other participants enjoy the most about the project is the writing of the personal notes of encouragement that go into each bag. The first year, our goal was to provide lunch bags for 200 homeless persons.

Students, faculty, and volunteers from Pasadena, Los Angeles and other communities in the San Gabriel Valley gathered at our school at 9:00 am. We made sandwiches (lunch meat /cheese/lettuce/tomato or peanut butter and jelly) and assembled the sack lunches that also included two pieces of fruit, a bag of chips, a bottle of water, a small carton of juice, a bag of cookies and napkins, utensils and condiments. We succeeded in meeting our goal of making 200 sack lunches. Volunteers were dispatched to Pasadena parks, libraries, parking lots, under passes and other places where homeless persons were known to have gathered. Lunch bags were distributed to anyone who wanted to have one. Volunteers who were not from Pasadena took lunches to distribute in their own communities. We also provided 50 lunches to Union Station Adult Center Homeless Shelter and distributed 50 lunches to people living in an encampment in downtown Los Angeles.

Each year, the number of sack lunches we provide has grown. We have also added another community agency to the list of our lunch bag recipients: Friends In Deed. In January of 2019, we were able to prepare and distribute 400 lunches and we hope to meet or exceed that goal this year.