My Donation Drive

Whenever I watch kids begging on the road without education because they are poor or they are orphans or seeing kids going to government school not having proper bags and uniform antithetically seeing people in my class rich with resources, a question of "why this inequality" arised to me. Education should be common to all. Everyone should be given an oppurtunity to prove their potential. No one in the world should go illiterate. Not because of their financial condition.My friends and I recieve so many stationary items and bottles as return gifts from birthday parties which are held around 10 to 15 times a year which I thought should go to the right hands, the people who can't attend Birthday parties.So I decided I should conduct a donation drive in my apartment and donate all the used but usable school stationary supplies to an orphanage or an ashram. I wanted to help 1000 people but my parents told me to start with a small number. This idea came from the fact that there are so many kids in my apartment and I have multiple notebooks and stationary items left after the school year and many of the kids would too. I made a list of all possible places to donate and reached out to them when one Ashram named Prasanna Jyothi with 40 girls told they would accept collections.I started by creating a poster and posting it on all Whatsapp groups in my apartment with a message. We got some immediate response, within a week,from people who wanted to donate.I collected them every weekend the time that the people were free. I expected more response from all the 2000 houses in my apartment but only 30 houses donated on the whole. I can't really blame them because not all schools were closed before my collection deadline. That was one of my main problems while doing the donation drive and many people asked me to extend the collection date.The deadline was early because I was leaving for vacation the day my school gets over. Well, back to the donation drive, collecting was most probably the hardest part as the houses were really far apart and each of them wanted their collection at a different timing so I had to collect at more than 2 or 3 goes on a day but after all collection got over, I was left with a balcony with no space to walk on. About that collection being the hardest part, I was wrong, it was arranging and seperating everything.I had received around 200 notebooks,30 bags and enough stationary to last all the kids for more than a year. After placing all the items into different bags based on their category, I was ready with everything within 3 hours.

The next morning was the donation day. I woke up, got ready and loaded everything in the car.Once I reached there I saw all the girls from grades 1 to some in 11 th and 12th. They were all helping each other and when their warden or caretaker called them, they were very disciplined and introduced themselves. They were grateful for the donations and showed us around the building. I was surprise on how disciplined they were and how they were well connected among each other. I felt like I had done something good to the world and made a difference which made me very happy. It brought me a lot of joy to know that I was not hurting people like the bullies in my school but helping people.I just realized one thing. They had such less resources but they were making so much use of it but many people don't use their resources even though they have lots of it. So be grateful for what you have and make the best use of it. I sent a thank you note to all the people who donated and I got some positive feedback for my work. I was highly encouraged by it and wanted to do more.I am currently planning to improvise it next year and correct my mistakes.Not all bags in the best of conditions so I want to upgrade that. I am also thinking of another way to engage kids like these but my idea is not confirmed yet. I would like to end with a quote by the Dalai Lama,"Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.”