Major Assignment 3 Write-Up - Grade: A+ PDF

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This is the write-up part of the major assignment 3 that students do in week 6....

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BLAST (Building Lives and Serving Tender-hearted) Rahila Ali MAT-144 August 14th, 2021

Church, Elderly and Orphans The individuals that I and my program will provide humanitarian assistance to are the local church, retired elderly seniors, and children living in orphanage care. To get further into details the people my project will be assisting through the Church, are the farmers who do not have any other source of income but by farming and selling their crops, more specifically, The Yisrael Family Urban Farm located in Sacramento, California. These people fall under “low income” or “low working class” and are around the ages 40-60 years old living with their families and children. Next, my project will assist the elderly seniors living at the Senior Center located in Elk Grove, not too far from Sacramento. They are retired people who are 62 and older with no jobs. Third, my project will assist children living at the Sacramento Children’s Homes who are under 18, do not have a job yet, and are cared for until they turn 18. My project on assisting people would not be much different because the ultimate plan is to create a team that will provide care, supplies, and helps in any sort of way to these people so they can be happy and healthy. Gathering people to help me and creating a team will not be easy but also not impossible. A good way I can gather people is by promoting my project by sending flyers, emails, or social media content and finding volunteers. Another way I can gather people is by fundraising such as car washes and giving the flyers to the people I come across, or by doing small events at Churches, or parks on how project BLAST can bring happiness to the community. One way project BLAST can keep track of the people we are helping is by getting phone numbers from those who have a cell phone and calling them every week to check up on how they are doing. The overall BLAST team will have categories, where the teammates will be assigned to do a specific task like keeping a list of phone numbers and calling the people on the list every week. Another way is by gathering people such as the elderly’s and having monthly meetings discussing everything that has happened in the past month. Lastly, as for the children, BLAST will have teammates who will be assigned to have a “Yes Day” at the orphanage where they will not say no to anything the children ask them to do like watching a movie, playing games, or going on picnics.

Feeding, Providing Supplies, and Guidance Project BLAST will have a fixed schedule where we will visit The Yisrael Family Urban Farm every Tuesday of the week to feed them. Every week BLAST will make an entrée, side, and drinks for the farmers to show appreciation of their hard work. Secondly, we will provide a compensation of $50 per person per week. For the elderly, BLAST will have teammates assigned to do work like cleaning, such as sweeping, dusting, cleaning the windows and bathrooms every Monday. Next, teammates will bring groceries and provide daily exercises like walking, © 2020. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.

stretching, and Yoga. This will be done at the Senior Center, and parks that have lakes every Wednesday. For orphan children, BLAST will provide supplies like warm clothes, socks, blankets, and dessert, every Thursday. Every Friday, BLAST will have a “Yes Day” at the orphanage and bring small presents and balloons for every child. In this project, I will also set aside a traditional day once a month where I and my team will have a field trip with the orphan children. We will rent a bus and take a trip to Six Flags or Universal Studios located in California. Our project will provide food and snacks for every child and assure they have a fun time. Skills needed for this type of assistance are good communication, a positive attitude, housekeeping, and must be good with children. BLAST will not require anyone to have any sort of certification but if anyone does have me then that would just be a bonus. The goal of this project is to make people happy and mentally stable. Providing care and guidance to these individuals will assure bliss and enjoyment. In a long run, this can also help those who are stressing, are mentally exhausted, and are overall sad because of their life situation and struggle. BLAST will have teammates who will be in charge of all the digital work like filming and taking pictures. There will also be teammates who will be in charge of keeping the files for each group that will have detailed information and tracks the work we have done.

Project Management There will be two central operation places for the project BLAST. The first one will be at the Universal Church located in Sacramento and at a rental studio apartment. The Church will be a meet-up spot at the end of the day to go through everything that happened during that day. This will not take long because I will make sure my teammates are getting rested after a long hardworking day. The studio will be a place mostly for meetings and a hangout spot. The only document that will be needed is a contract between me, my teammates, and the church. I will also make waivers for everyone to sign and keep the original one in a secure safe at the studio. I will be the only one who will know the code for the safe, everyone else will have copies of their waivers. In the waiver, it will be clearly written about the conditions and expectations of one’s job. After the waiver is signed, every individual will get a background check for any history of crimes. I will create a group chat in the app called GroupMe where everyone will be able to communicate with each other about work-related things. Every three months there will be a meeting held at the studio that will go over the contract and waivers all over to ensure there are not any disagreements about anything. If there are, I will take full responsibility to fix it. For this project, I want to be able to have about 50 to 80 volunteers who will be willing to provide assistance to the community.

First Half of the Project Project BLAST will start on August 17th, 2026, and will end on November 9th, 2026. In order to be ready to start the project, I would start preparing 11 weeks before the start date. I would need 5 weeks of fundraising and 6 weeks of advertising. This is because so I can have time to gather people to work with me and be financially ready by the time it begins. During 3 weeks prior to the project, I would start making BLAST uniforms, then start assigning the members to their job categories, like digital, housekeeping, and records keeping. My job will be to get food supplies, groceries, and clothes. I will also be in charge of the weekly schedules. To prove to an outside © 2020. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.

person that BLAST is ready to go, we will need to be ready with supplies, tasks lists, and cars. The digital members will have the equipment ready; the housekeeping members will have the cleaning supplies ready, and I will l have all the tasks are written down and the schedule for the week ready to go. The records-keeping members will not have people listed just yet but once the project starts, they will start keeping records of people that we will assist every day. My job will not just be in charge of the schedule, but I will also give my time to my teammates and help them as much as I can. In the remaining weeks, I do not have a specific number to assist people, but the goal is to be able to provide assistance as soon as I can and to whomever, I can. A person that I will be working with is Alondra Ledesma, who is a member of a youth organization called Youth Power Group (YPG). She has the experience to do small projects and will be my guide.

Second Half of the Project BLAST will have about 3 weeks of operation left before we start to wrap up the project. During these weeks, the goal is to be able to assist over 100 people altogether and ask them if there is any other thing that we can do for them. We will also ask the people how we can do it better next time. We want to make sure the farmers, are not struggling with money, and are getting fed 3 meals a day daily. We want to make sure the elderly we assist live in a clean house, are getting their daily exercise, and have groceries stored up. For the orphans, we want to make sure they have enough and clean clothes, they are getting fed 3 times a day daily, their mental health is stable, and overall, just happy. To meet this goal, BLAST will have people with a positive mindset and are loving what they do. If otherwise, I will give my additional effort into meeting the goal. I can do this by observing the members and their behavior. If there are people with the same energy as me, I will work with them more. In the last week, I will go over all the work BLAST has done in 12 weeks with the teammates. I will go over the number of people we have assisted and the amount of food and supplies we have provided. There is not a specific number I have decided to help as it will be my first project, and things may not go directly as planned, but I would make sure that BLAST has helped at least 100 people. If there are any remaining money left, I will give that money to the farmers to use to provide for their family. The records I want to have, are the list of people we assisted, the amount of money that was spent, and the amount that was left. With these records, I will be able to do the same project in the future and it will give me an overall result on what can be done better next time. The steps that are required to finalize any location-related expenses are phone calls to confirm everything. At the end of the day, I want to have a bonding relationship with the people I assist. This is so they can have a person they can trust. I will give everyone my phone number if they ever need anything or want any sort of help.

Project Evaluation If I had to determine immediately after the end of my project whether my assistance had helped, I would ask all the farmers, elderly, children, and my teammates how BLAST had helped them. The data and records will show exactly what was done right and what was not. Another way is I will watch all the recordings and shootings that were done during the project to see if there were things that we might have missed. This is important to have because not only it shows the impact © 2020. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.

of your program, but it also gives us what can be done better for the next time. After 3 months, I will call back everyone whose project BLAST has helped and do a follow-up check-up to see how they are doing. I will also give them a visit to see from their own eyes how their living conditions are. To determine if the farmers are happy, I will see if they are still struggling financially. For the elderly’s, I will check if they have everything they need and are happy. For orphans, it is the same as the elderly, I will make a visit to check if they have enough clothing supplies to wear like enough warm clothes for winter, and check to see how their mental health is. If anyone is showing signs of depression or is stressed about anything, I will politely ask them what is bothering them and what can I do to fix it because that is the whole meaning of project BLAST. I think it would be important to know the conditions of the people we will be helping. If someone is struggling, going through hardships, or is mentally exhausted, we would put in extra effort and additional tasks to help them such as donation and therapy.

Ethics and Christian Worldview Analysis My project is mainly based on showing kindness and love to one another. In Christianity, the two greatest commandments are to love your God with everything and love your neighbor as you would love yourself. There is a lot of cruelty around, The Yisrael Family Urban Farm is a place where African American lives and there is a lot of racism that mainly direct to their kind. Project BLAST will be a way for them to have hope, feel appreciated and loved by people of a different color. As for the elderly’s, many get abandoned by their family. People forget that they are who they are today because of their parents and that it was the parents who taught them to walk. My project will help these individuals live happier life knowing that they have not been forgotten. The same concept applies to orphan children, whose parents gave them away. BLAST will ensure that these children can feel like they have a family who cares and loves them very much. All these people are different from me because, I am fortunate enough to have a full-time job that pays me good money, I am fortunate enough to have a roof and my family living with me. Knowing there are so many people who are out there that are not as lucky as I give me all the reasons to help and show love because I was born into this world with a purpose just like everyone else. Project BLAST will restore hope and love to those who felt unwanted. There should be a mutual understanding that everyone goes through a tough time and only we ourselves can help one another to show kindness and love because that is what God recommends us to do. This is why I specifically picked this project because it will restore back humanity.

Summary and Reflections The person I contacted to learn about the needs in my local community was Alondra Ledesma. Her advice to me was to ensure everything stays organized and to start early. She also advises walking up to people and giving out flyers about the project and asking if they are willing to help. She also advises that I will be paying people who work with me, I should pay them on time otherwise they might not want to continue working. Another local need I considered was feeding the homeless in my area. There are many homeless livings all over Sacramento that I see every day, I try to help them if ever come across anyone at the traffic lights by giving them a couple of dollars, but it is because there are so many homeless people in Sacramento, there will always be someone who I would not be able to help. Another avenue I can think of for people to receive © 2020. Grand Canyon University. All Rights Reserved.

assistance is by creating a Facebook group dedicated to project BLAST. However, not many will have the access to social media so one way I can think of is making business cards where people can call or come to for assistance. A third way I can provide assistance is by signing partnerships with the churches that people live close to. That way they can contact the church and the church can contact me. I think if I were creating projects like this one, I would need legal documentation that can authorize me to create one. I would also need to get a loan from the bank because it will cost me lot of money and for that, I would first have to wait for the loan to get approved.

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