Bryant Student Volunteers "Organize" Project Outreach

Team Bryant Outreach was formed by a group of students in Professor Winsor's Management 200 class at Bryant University during the Spring 2007 semester to address the primary problem of an unorganized food storage room. As part of their Service Learning Project, a semester long assignment, students were asked to find a nonprofit organization and help them with a project that will significantly contribute to the long term success of the charity group.

These students, who are all part of the Class of 2009, included Joe Pelletier, Steve Virta, Nick Pileeki, Justine Turcotte, and Robert Stewart. The students stumbled upon Project Outreach from a volunteer bulletin posted on www.VCRI.org and immediately contacted the director of Project Outreach, Paula Cartwright. The nonprofit's tasks looked daunting, for with a reputation of being the #1 food distributor in Rhode Island (nearly 400,000 lbs. per year), Team Outreach knew the storage room was going to be big. Yet knowing that the effort would help more than 700 people, the students were motivated to take up this challenge.

Paula, who sacrificed and dedicated her time helping the Bryant Students learn about what needed to be accomplished, was a key asset to the operation. Without Paula's help, Team Outreach would not have been able to coordinate all of the activities surrounding the project's criteria, and for this, Team Outreach has expressed their most sincere thanks.

At first, the food storage room was in complete disarray. With no clear plan, the Bryant Students were forced to consistently decide where each type of food should go. Because the storage room resembled a "living and breathing organism," many sections found new homes within the gymnasium-sized storage facility. Hours of work were put into this project to ensure that the room would flow with the objectives set by the academic project and the organization. Moving pallets, boxes, and tables were some of the frequent tactics used inside the storage room, with the ultimate goal of having it resemble a supermarket for the needy. The project didn't stop at the storage room.

Team Outreach was able to utilize Paula's help to make updates to the website and revitalize a community garden outside the church. As the community garden brightened the spirits of those in the neighborhood, the creation of a Bryant-Project Outreach Alliance at the University gave Paula access to an entirely new source of volunteers. By expanding the horizons and scope of the nonprofit beyond Washington Park, Bryant will be able to play an active role within Project Outreach and provide the organization with students who can assist in future projects.

All in all, the Service Learning Project with Project Outreach has been a great success. The dedication of both Project Outreach’s Paula Cartwright and the Bryant students is a testament to philanthropic efforts being made by young adults’ everyday. This project has truly proved that a little bit of help and support can go a long way and make a big difference to a vast number of people. Once again, Team Outreach owes it to Paula’s positive attitude and enormous support; without her, this project would have never been put on its feet.

Testimony

Jennifer Conley interned last summer with Project Outreach. She recently wrote a short note to Project Outreach Director Paula Cartwright to emphasize the impact of her experience while she was at Project Outreach.

Paula,
Good Afternoon! I have been meaning to contact you for quite sometime now. I can not begin to tell you how much my experience at Project Outreach truly changed mylife. I think of all of you honestly everyday. The children were my everything and the want to do so much more is constantly on my mind. Working at Foodshare, the sister food bank of The Rhode Island Commnuity Food Bank, makes me feel that in a way I am still a part of your lives. I really want to come visit this summer. When you get the chance please tell me how everything is. And give everyone my love and blessings. I really would like to contact those that I grew close to when I was there. I thought it would be a great idea to be "pen pals" with the children. I hope to hear from you soon.

P.S. I am coordinanting CT's largest fundraiser to help our hungry neighbors. It is The 24th annual Foodshare Walk Against Hunger. (www.foodshare.org.

Best, Jenn

Inspire

God works in mysterious ways
He inspires us to be different
To make mistakes
And to learn from our mistakes
To Dream
And to follow our dreams
To make goals
To achieve them
God is all around us
Giving us clues and signs in the right direction
People sometimes don't look for the signs
Never the less the signs are there
God gave me signs and pushed me in the right direction
God making sure I make my dream come true
God is good!
All the time!

Lillian M. Sanchez, Age 16

Nutrition at Project Outreach

Nutrition is defined as the taking in and use of food and other nourishing material by the body, in order to provide energy to do work. In today’s busy world where the schedules are hectic and there is never enough time in the day, and for those of us less fortunate than others, nutrition is the last thing some of us think about. Project Outreach’s look on nutrition is that everyone who is able to eat, should be nutritionally stable. With the many food and item donations given to the program the interns at the facility have created several nutrition based programs involving both children and adults. Breakfast implementation for the children, gardening programs at the Southside Community Garden and Project Outreach’s Walk for Health are just to name a few of the programs Jennifer Connley and Jon Sebastian, the interns at Project Outreach have devised to further educate the people of the Washington Park area not only in diet but a sensible combination of diet and exercise to provide nutritional stability.

City Farm

City Farm is a place to grow and play
Where you live and learn
Watch and listen
It's a place you know everything
And could know nothing
It's a place of mystery and wonder
City Farm is a place of hard work
It's also a place were hard work pays off
City Farm is a place were adults and kids learn and play together

Lillian M. Sanchez, Age 16