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On Sunday, March 28, 2016 St. Mark’s hosted the first student-organized meal packaging event with the organization End Hunger NE (New England/Northeast). For what was months of planning and fundraising, the event was a success. The group that lead the fundraiser consisted of myself, Lucy Cao, and Janelle Carmichael. Probably the most essential factor of our event was Mr. David Vachris, our advisor and the Dean of Students at St. Mark’s. He was the person that planted the idea into our minds about “going big”. Of course, big for me, means huge. This event was a successful “trial round” of what the future holds. 13,024 meals is no number to slight, but we can do better. Something that makes charity so great is the ability to always do better. There is no limit to how much money can be raised or how many meals can be packaged. Enough talking about future plans, let’s talk about what we accomplished this year.

There were many factors that went into fundraising, but that’s not what I want to talk about. While raising money was surely exciting, nothing was better than seeing the wall of packaged meals. I took a minute during the hustle of the packaging event to watch the boxes of food stack up across the wall. That was the turning point in my experience. I had spent nearly 5 months preparing and fundraising money for this event and the “wow” factor had just hit me. We were in the process of changing someone’s day, week, or even life, depending on how you look at it. A total of 60 generous students and faculty had taken precious time out of their day to help a much less fortunate group they didn’t even know. Janelle and Lucy had sacrificed their nights to help raise money. I had spent countless hours creating a business plan to effectively raise money. All of that effort wrapped up into one moment. We were making a significant difference. Students were having fun while helping the less fortunate. Not only did we help suffering people near us, we brought the St. Mark’s community together. That is why I strive to be bigger and better. For the sake of unifying a segmented world.

Event Statistics:

13,024 meals packaged

About 60 members of the community, both students and faculty

$3,266 raised