Life often throws many eye opening experiences at you. Both expected and unexpected. This experience I had was both of those things. Back in April, my friend Keshan from my old School, BSC, contacted me with the idea to collect donations and give them to those who have been affect by the pandemic outside of Colombo. But the idea went quiet with not much being heard from it since life pretty much went back to normal with the lack of community spread of Covid-19. However, when this second wave hit, I remembered the idea and I contacted Keshan saying “Hey, now’s a good time to do this. Let’s make a move” and so began the project.
We created posters and advertised on social media, asking people to donate any old books, toys, clothes, and anything that would be of use. One Saturday afternoon, me and my friend Ayush, also from BSC spent a good 6 hours driving all over the city collecting donations from people. It was heartwarming to see how much stuff people were willing to donate. Books, toys, clothes and other items that would be of great use to the people who have been effected negatively by the situation ravaging the country. The back of my truck was filled to the brim with absolutely no space for anymore donations. But we weren’t complaining. In fact, we couldn’t be happier with what we had collected in the 6 hours we spent roaming the city. 1 week later, we spent another 6 hours organizing what goes to which family (there were roughly 50 that we would be helping) and we organized who would be transporting what. This proved challenging because we ended up needing more vehicles due to the number of people coming on the trip, as well as what we would talking on the trip. The toys, food, and books, etc. Thankfully, right at the very last minute, my dad let us use his car as it had enough space for what we needed. On the night of the 20th, I went over to Keshan’s house to drop off my dad’s car and load up my truck with what we needed. I would be transporting primarily the clothes that were donated. My dad’s car would be transporting the rice and other foods. Aysuh’s car would be transporting toys, and Keshan’s car would be transporting the books. We also had our friend, Devin, bringing his truck to for additional space.
And so on December 21st, 2020, our convoy, 5 cars strong, set off at 5 AM to Kurunegala. The drive was relatively easy and we made good progress. I was at the back of the convoy following Devin’s truck. Keshan’s car was at the front of the pack. Reason being is because his car has a flag pole and this would lessen our chances of being stopped for the Rapid-Antigen tests. Thankfully however, there were no check points even though I highly feared seeing one. After around 3 hours, we arrived and got straight to work. Now I mentioned earlier that this experience was eye opening in an expected and unexpected way. Expected in the way that these people were in dire need. The pandemic wasn’t easy on any of them so it was great to see them being helped. The unexpected aspect of it was the reality check that it gave us. Yes, we were doing a good deed, but at the end of the day we got back into our fancy cars and went back to living the good life. These people had barely anything and they were so overwhelmed and appreciative of what we had done for them. It really puts things into perspective of how lucky we really are. Most of our problems are first world problems. Nothing compared to what these people faced on a day to day basis.Now this whole project didn’t come without its challenges. First finding out what goes to which family took an age. Second, figuring out who would transport what, who’s cars would be needed, whether we had enough space for the donations and the people coming on the trip, so on, and third, the safety measures we had to take throughout. We all made sure to be wearing not only our face masks, but also our face shields, maintain social distance, and sanitize our hands as often as we possibly could. It took us around half an hour to unload all of the donations we had brought. It was so great to see so many people helping each other out by distributing the boxes among one another. No one fought over anything. Everyone waited their turn and were profusely grateful for what they had received. It was truly a very moving experience for me and i’m sure for everyone else who went on this trip. I definitely look forward to hopefully doing this again sometime this year.
At the end of the day, we all drove down to Kandy to our friend Ashan’s hotel for lunch (and by chance, ran into Anya from my grade who was also staying at the hotel with her family), where we all reflected on the day and what we had accomplished. In true Christmas spirit, we were happy that we had contributed and made an impact to these people, even if we couldn’t greet them and meet them all personally. After a couple of hours of rest, we made the long drive back home. It took us about 4 hours but we all made it back safely. We stopped at Mcdonald’s Kiribathgoda to say one final goodbye to the group and we all went our separate ways. I highly encourage anyone to do something like this because of the reality check it gives you and the feeling of satisfaction from giving back to the community.
