Erica's Community Project

I was first involved in the Earth Day Cleanup at Kean University for the community project. However, due to personal reasons, I could not attend. So, it crossed my mind the idea of giving food to people that I could tell really needed it. I choose to provide the food where I live, Irvington. Irvington is categorized to be in the ten most dangerous places to live in New Jersey because of the continuous crimes happening, such as murder, rape, assault, theft, etc. There are not many options regarding work, especially for the black community and the old generation. Every day, I see the struggle of many people that goes to my workplace when they are trying to buy food. Unfortunately, most of the time, they do not have enough money to even cover a sandwich that does not cost more than 5 dollars. It is really sad to see how poverty limits people on what they should eat because of their income. Furthermore, I think that giving food really helps the community when it comes to social issues (poverty, unemployment). I could make someone’s day by just offering what to eat. So many people wake up, and the first thing they think is if they will be able to eat. Maybe I found some people like that today when I was distributing the food.

I believe that we should be grateful for what we have. When I see those parents coming to the store with their kids, saying that they can only choose one thing from the store that is no more than 1 dollar, I realize how lucky we are to have the opportunity to be able to eat three meals a day and choose whatever snack we want. Most of the people of this community do not count on enough support from the government. Some might qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP), but not all. Moreover, questions like How can they live in a critical situation like this? How can people with the resources (money) not help them? Is this social issue ever going to end? These types of questions always come to mind. 

For this community project, I asked my dad and an employee of ours to help me settle in the street while also getting the food ready. My father told me that it was an excellent idea since he has also seen the necessity of people of this area and how nice it would be if more acts like this one could be done more frequently. I really enjoyed the smiles on the people’s faces when handling the food. I could tell how grateful they were towards me for that little act of humanity. I will definitely keep doing good things for this community because they genuinely need it.