The Journey of H&H (Housing and Habitat)

In 2019, when I first came to OSC, I decided to join Housing and Habitat as my choice of service, which has been my first and only service that I’ve dedicated my time and efforts to. When I first joined the service and group of H&H, we devoted the majority of our service time to planning events and goals for our service group to reach. As well as that, a lot of our time was spent in the workshop, where we would try to build school furniture such as chairs and tables to provide to local schools. However, the main event and highlight of our service group was the fundraiser in which we organized called the Home run. In the home run, we created a 5 km route for the majority of the school community to run. We would collect as much money as we could by selling tickets to participate in the run as well as t shirts which were created and customized by us. The main goal of this event was to bring people together and to include a bit of physical activity to show support. The money collected was used by us to buy materials to build the furnitures for local schools.

(2019 Home Run route)

(Skeleton behind the video to promote home run)

As seen above, this was the route which we as a service created and decided to use for the participants to run. Throughout the course, there were about 5 stops that were set up evenly across the map that each had water and fruits to be given to the runners. We also had two designated bikers who were myself and a past student to guide the runners throughout the run and to make sure no one got lost. Additionally, we placed signs around the course to again help guide the runners. The image below the route is a screenshot of the plan which we followed to help film and make a promoting video to show to the rest of the school. Thankfully, our home run was very successful as we were able to sell many tickets and a few shirts.

(Checklist on how to kickstart service)

When we started school and service again in 2021, we created a document and shared it with everyone to create a categorical checklist including tasks and goals that we had to complete and reach. This is seen in the image (Screenshot) above that includes a few of the tasks that we had to do. Unfortunately, due to COVID and the closing of the schools within Sri Lanka, we were never able to complete the tasks as it was just too complicated to do behind our screens.

Now that we are finally back in school and are kickstarting things back up, we will definitely try to continue Housing and Habitat. My goal is that we will create some goals and achievements for our service group throughout the length of this school year. One of my main goals is to continue the tradition of the home run as it is an event that we have been doing for multiple years. Since I am also a more experienced member of the group, I will try to challenge myself and step up more in the footsteps of a leader. Last but not least, we as a service group have always been ambitious, which is why it is important for us to make a bigger change and impact on our target audience. 

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