"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?" -Martin Luther King Jr.
To honor Martin Luther King Jr., KindCraft asked the question as we do every month: What can we do for others?
We decided to host a Peanut Butter and Jelly Drive for a local nonprofit called KC PBJ project. KC PBJ project is located in Olathe, KS and their mission is to work alongside food pantries, meal centers, and soup kitchens as a way to provide food to those in need. KindCraft families spent the last few weeks collecting bread, peanut butter and jelly. Ryan Ross, Executive Director of KC PBJ Project was thrilled to hear that we wanted to support his nonprofit and provided us with details needed to start collecting. They were in need of 20 loaves of bread (all they store at this point), and up to 300 containers of a combination of peanut butter and jelly, preferably strawberry.
KindCraft created a service project and shared the news with members through our website and social media channels. We wanted to make the project fun for kids so we encouraged them to submit video clips of them dancing to the song, “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time” (apologizing in advance if this song is now stuck in your head :).
Several families volunteered to be a collection/drop off site so that we could make it as convenient as possible for families to donate. We had collection sites in Olathe, Overland Park, Lenexa, and Spring Hill, KS. The collections started to roll in and we knew that we were going to exceed our goal of 100 containers total. We have such a giving community!!
Our final drop off day was January 17 and the containers kept coming in. We most definitely got a good workout lifting and sorting ALL THOSE CONTAINERS.
We had to stop stacking our collections on our table because it started to creak and cave in the middle. So this is just a portion of our collection. We ended up collecting 160 containers of peanut butter, 140 containers of jelly, and 30 loaves of bread. Ross and his friend came with a big pick up truck to collect all of the donations. He was very impressed with the collection size and was very thankful to all who contributed.
We did a little math and calculated that we collected enough peanut butter to make over 4000 sandwiches (2 tbsps is equal to 1 fl. ounce and we had close to 5000 total ounces of peanut butter donated) and enough jelly to make over 7000 sandwiches (2 teaspoons of jelly is equal to 0.33 fl. ounces of jelly per sandwich).
Currently, KC PBJ Project has the following needs:
Adopt A Family! This program allows you to take a 'hands on' approach with one of our adopted families. We will connect you with a family in need. You will purchase the bread, peanut butter, and jelly that will cover them for a month (typically $10 to $35 per month). You will then deliver to the family once a month. We will let you know in advance the quantities of bread, peanut butter, and jelly that are needed. We will also be here to support you along the way. Our families are extremely gracious of our service, you will certainly feel appreciated!
Delivery (right now we do not need delivery drivers, but please read on for what is involved incase our needs change). With this role you would pick up packaged orders from us near 151st and BlackBob in south Olathe. You would then deliver them to the front door of our adopted households. You would deliver 1-3 deliveries at a time. We can be flexible to the time commitment you are able to provide to us.
To learn more about these volunteer opportunities, please visit the volunteer page of their website.
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