Humanitarian - Hygiene & School Kits

During half the week we meet with "community champions," whose charitable societies serve the poor and needy in the Holy Land.  LDS Charities and BYU's JC provide a wide variety of goods & services to worthy charities.

Kitchen Aid.  Much equipment is provided to societies in both Jerusalem & the West Bank that: (i) help women to become self-sufficient, and (ii) prepare, store & distribute food to elderly, homebound, homeless & sheltered persons.

Handicrafts.  Sewing, button-hole & other machines went to societies in Bethany on the West Bank for Arab women making items for sale. 

Classrooms. We have refurbished schools in Israel and provided tables, chairs & white boards for women's empowerment groups in the West Bank.

Computer Labs.  Hardware, tables, software & networking devices help the disabled and poor children in rehab centers and schools.

Bedding.  Blankets and coverlets, etc. at bedouin camps and at hospitals & rehab centers aid parents who stay to help patients. 

Medical & Dental.  Many types of equipment go to medical & dental clinics in Jerusalem that mainly serve needy children.  

Mobility Devices.  Walkers, crutches, canes and 4-prong walking sticks helped the physically disabled in East Jerusalem.

Clinics, schools and hospitals distribute our hygiene kits & often do creative training on brushing teeth & making proper use of these kits -- our main brand.

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Hygiene Kits.

By far our largest ongoing project is assembling 30,000 hygiene kits each year for hospitals & poor families.  Included in plastic bags (5 per box) are 2 towels & combs, soap bars, tooth paste & 4 tooth brushes. 

Students & community volunteers work together.  Charities pick up & distribute finished boxes--each containing five kits.  During our first week, a very large partner picked up 2,000 kits.  I got a pretty good workout that day!

On 10/1/10,  our Winter term students did their first of 7 projects assembling kits.    They did 1,600, exceeding our goal of 1,200.  About 20 students came each of two hours.  Hannah Cox (blue shirt, below) organized 4 lines of students along two rows of tables.  Meanwhile, students in the store room sorted nearly 7,000 tooth brushes by color (blue, red, green and purple) for each child in a benefitted family to have his or her own color.

Students at each end of the 4 assembly lines folded towels & rolled into them a large tooth paste tube & two bars of soap.  Each towel was passed down the line & placed in a plastic bag.  Students in the middle of each line rolled the remaining ingredients (2 combs and 4 toothbrushes) into another folded towel and placed both into the bag.  At the end of each line, filled bags were passed to tables where they were closed with heat-sealing machines.

Finally, the bags were placed into assembled boxes--and stacked in our large storeroom.  Here, Jake Steel showed some moxy with 4 boxes.

The last step is to clean up the mess in our garage, including hauling all refuse to the outside trash compactor.  Students after the fall term worked to loud music and then stayed for dancing & refreshments.  It got easier & more fun with each term of students.

On Wed. 10/13/10, we were joined by 7 nurses from Red Crescent Hospital.  After the first hour, they enjoyed delicious treats with Ann Killian--our nursing instructor working with 8 BYU-I students at the JC and nearby hospitals.  After two hours we had assembled 1,750 kits!  They get better each time!

On Fri. 11/4/10 we were joined by 7 YMCA workers.  Altogether we assembled 1,834 kits,  topping the 10/13/10 record of 1,750.

On 4/11/11 willing volunteers from Arab Society for the Physically Handicapped & faculty families joined eager students to assemble 1,660 kits.

All 80 students each term participated in these sessions.  We averaged 1,677 kits (335 boxes) per session.  For all of 2010, with a reduced budget, 28,500 kits (5,600 boxes) were assembled.   

 Winter Term. These students make a party out of each kit project.  Since our budget for kits in 2011 was initially reduced, we cut the 2-hour assembly sessions down to one hour.  Jared, a prof'l disc jockey, kept things moving -- and the students singing -- with fast, loud, happy music.

It's hard to stop these cheerful workers when the hour is up.  

Mark "trash man" Laney was also happy in his work. 

After cleanup and takedown, it was time to dance and sing some more.

The Muhlestein kids also had fun in the garage on Fri. 2/25/11.

Chelsea Jackson is the enthusiastic Winter 2011 Chair of the student Community Relations/Humanitarian Committee.  She is also Marilyn's asst. for Young Women on the Sabbath, helping to teach some fine lessons.

Some augmented funding came thru for 2011.  So we will hit our original goal of 30,000 kits.  On 4/8/11, Winter Term students did 2,600 kits (520 boxes, a new JC record) and then another 1,500 on 4/15/11 before leaving.

Spring/Summer students -- also enjoyed their 5 sessions.  On 6/24/11 they did 1.750 kits, with help from some Muslim nurses & staff from Red Crescent. 

Students did over-the-head passes of the heat-sealed kits.  (Nice catch, Megan Judd.)  But this time they were too tired to dance, after 4 very hot days in Jordan.

On 7/22/11 they broke all records with 700 boxes (that's 3500 kits)!  They set up 3 rows (2 lines on each) & towel-folding "machines" on the floor.  On 7/29/11, they did over 400 boxes (2,000 kits) before running out of supplies.

They seemed happy in their work. 

Fall '11 students -- This group made history for their first assembly 9/30/11, doing 2725 kits (545 boxes)!  All 82 students seemed to come -- and they stayed for two full hours. 

Ludlow & Harper kids joined the "bucket brigade."

Time to sing & dance to celebrate afterwards!

On 11/25/11 they outdid themselves with 3,060 kits.  Again, the key was setting up 3 assembly rows.  They exceeded their goal of 10K kits in Fall '11.

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School Kits.

All year, we had hoped to meet the strong demand for elementary school supplies.  In Aug. '11 Jim Kearl (BYU) agreed to fund the first 7,000 kits.  Each kit included 13 notebooks (for Math, Arabic/Hebrew & English), 4 lead pencils, 12 colored pencils, 1 pencil sharpener, 1 eraser, 1 ruler & 1 safety scissors. 

On 10/21/11 the big job was sorting notebooks -- 5 thin (40 pp.) & 1 thick (96 pp.) for Arabic/Hebrew, 3 thin for English & Math and 1 thin for Math.

Plastic bags filled with notebooks were passed to the two assembly rows, where all other items were inserted. 

Then the bags were heat-sealed & packed into boxes (5 kits each).  These students really loved to work -- especially with loud music & Marilyn's cookies.

On 10/21/11,  Fall '11 students did 1,850 school kits (370 boxes) on their historic first try.  On Fri.  10/28/11 they doubled that total:  3,690 kits (738 boxes).  On 12/2/11 they ran out of supplies after 1/2 hour.  But they still did almost 6,000 kits (out of the 7,000 goal) for this pilot project.  They celebrated by first building a towering totem of boxes.

There was time to dance and sing, circling around the totem -- until it fell.

Much of the fast & joyous work was due to Brielle Kern's music -- especially on 12/2/11 with Christmas sounds.  "Feliz Navidad" was a favorite.

This Humanitarian Committee did a great job throughout the entire Fall '11 term.  Right of me were back row: Jeff Nuckles, Jacklyn Sheffield, Caleb Cunningham (chair), Kaleb Valdez (vice chair) & Brielle Kern. Front row:  Katie Albrecht, Rebecca Rees and Shalyn Blackham.

Winter '12 Term.  These students were eager to set new records.  On 1/20/12 they quickly made 830 school kits -- but ran out of pencil sharpeners.  One key was many tables at one end used to sort & fill 11 notebooks (6 types) into each kit.

Another key was using a forklift to move palettes of boxes 81 at once into storage.  Mark Larsen had excellent help from Thomas Harper (age 6),

On 2/10/12 they did 3,500 hygiene kits on their first try.  But once again, we ran out of toothbrushes -- so they only could do ____ kits on 2/17/12.