I was so excited last week when I learned that the Humanitarian Aid Center in St. George is open to ANYONE who wants to volunteer. Throughout the years I have been doing random projects for humanitarian aid, but it felt like you had to have a hook up and KNOW someone to get projects to and from the Center, located in some mysterious place in St. George! To my surprise, the Humanitarian Aid Center is located in DI on the second floor (yes there are stairs in there, somewhere...) and it is open to the public from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Large groups can call ahead of time to so they'll be ready for them. You can also stop by to pick up projects to work on at home. This is also the place to donate fabric, yarn and such.One of the main focuses this year is providing for orphaned children in Africa. Most of these children have AIDS and don't live past the age of ten. The church is working to provide each child with an outfit, a blanket, and a toy or stuffed animal. When the child dies, he/she is buried in the outfit, with the blanket and toy. There is a section in the Humanitarian Aid Center called The Zoo, where stuffed animals are made from donated fabric and stuffing.
There is another new project started by the Church for women in Africa. There are women and girls who during their "Ladies days" sit in a river all day, and are unable to go to school or work because they have no feminine products. I never imagined such a thing...sitting in a river! Cloth pads are now being made out of diaper material for these women.
There are many, many more projects to do at the Humanitarian Aid Center, which you may already be familiar with, such as school kits, new born kits and hygiene kits. I don't know the exact statistics, but thousands of these kits sent all over the world each year.
Doing this work brings a lot of happiness to me. It's too easy to get caught up in the self-centered, mundane tasks of every day life. I'm just so excited for the opportunity to make even a small difference. If you have a chance, give it a try!!
1 comment:
I love that you shared about this! I know we have the same thing in the DI in Logan. We have a woman in our ward who is in charge of the humanitarian needs and we have projects about every 6 weeks. I didn't know about some of those projects you discussed. We are working on making file folder games and school bags. I too feel so blessed when I can help others.
I have to tell you that you are a great example of introducing humanitarian projects to me. Thank you!
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