Cozy Cold — Blankets to the Poor

We were very keen on making a difference in our community. As the winter was approaching, the nights were getting colder, particularly this year it is colder because of the Leher and Helen cyclones. When we read the newspapers we were really sad to know that some homeless people even died because of the cold. We wanted to really think of doing something about this.

We were really inspired by an article which said that a group of young people collected 300 blankets and distributed them to the homeless people. We thought this is something we can do. This is how the idea of ‘Cozy Cold’ was born. We got really excited and started our planning.

What did we do?

The target of the ‘cozy cold’ project was to at least collect 25 blankets in a week’s time. With the philosophy that ‘your trash is our treasure’, we wanted to ask people for used/ old/ torn blankets.

We made a list of all the people we can approach for this donation. We largely focused on going to all the houses in our apartment blocks and our colony. We also made a list of friends; we included bus friends, classmates, teachers and family members.

We decided that we will spend one hour per day after school for this activity. We maintained a log of all the persons we were talking to. We went to each house in our locality and spoke about our project. We called all our friends’ parents and spoke to them.

The response was very heartwarming for us. Many people gave more than one blanket. Many gave old sweaters, socks and other woollens too. A few actually purchased and gave new blankets. We felt really thankful for all their generosity.

What were the outcomes?

We collected 17 blankets, 4 pairs of socks and 4 sweaters in four days!

We felt very proud that we had the capacity to help someone even if that meant in a small way. Almost all the people we spoke to appreciated the idea and seemed very open to giving.

We felt motivated that if we ‘think’ we can do something, we can actually do it. It made us feel confident. We learnt that we had the capacity to convince people of our ideas.

It was not a huge benefit but we think we made a few peoples’ winter a little more cozier.

How successful were we in achieving our goals?

We were very satisfied in achieving the goals of this small project. The two difficulties we faced during this collection process: There was not enough time after school. We also had difficulty finding the deserving people to donate the blankets.

Our parents helped us throughout this project, helping us work on our skills and to maintain a proper log. We developed and were able to experience more of ‘empathy’ and ‘curiosity’.

We learnt that to take on projects like these, one needs patience, good communication skills, perseverance and an ability to enroll and convince others of our ideas. For us to do this better next time, we will need to allot more time for this activity. We also need to approach more people to help us with the donations.

When we saw the homeless sleeping on the streets, we really could experience the inequality in our community. We also do not have any structured programs that will support them during tough times like these. We felt people who had more had a whole lot more and people who had less had nothing. This just does not seem fair.

We have learnt to have gratitude for what we have. We have also learnt not to constantly ask for things and to be satisfied with whatever we have. We felt almost ashamed of having so many things of comfort with us while many did not even have basic stuff with them.

Akhil Gudapati (VII G) and Amani Gudapati (V G)\