On Christmas morning my family has a tradition of cooking and handing out warm meals for the homeless. This year we cooked chicken fried rice and drove to a park in Washington, D.C. There were about 150 people in that park. It was very cold and some did not have shelter. Many told us they hadn’t eaten in days. This made me feel like we did not have enough food for everyone. In the past we tried to make more meals but it was still not enough. We had brought ketchup and Chick-Fil-A sauce for people who wanted toppings. When we opened the trunk ready to give out meals all the food was gone in about 3 minutes. 

After the meals were gone people still approached us and were asking for help. We connected with a man who was struggling to find a job. He was from Honduras and was discriminated against at his previous job because of his skin color. This really made me feel sad because he did nothing wrong and because I am also Hispanic. We were able to give him some resources to help him find another job. 

Overall this experience was very heartwarming, and it encouraged me to expand kids4good to focus more on helping people in need, not just primarily environmental activities. I am planning on going back so if you are interested in joining us let us know by signing up for our Newsletter for upcoming events at https://kids4good.us/contact/

Our Cleanup at White Oak was amazing. We started off with giving out supplies, volunteers signing our newsletter and writing messages on our board for people who walked by. Afterwards, Delegate Lorig Charkoudian gave some remarks and gave us a citation for the work that we were doing. We then collected trash along the road and sidewalk and found; a credit card, an IPhone, an IPad, 5 tires, and 7 rusty metals. We collected 22 trash bags and 24 recycling bags. We had about 30 volunteers participate in the cleanup which was great to see.

We would like to thank Delegate Charkoudian and the District 20 team for the citation. It meant a lot to me which will motivate me to do more cleanups and community events. We also thank the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection for the supplies. And we would like to give a very special thank you to our amazing volunteers who helped make White Oak greener and safer!

If you want to volunteer in future events, sign up for our newsletter! I am also fluent in Spanish so let me know if you want the information in Spanish to share with. Thank you.

– Dylan

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Our 4th community clean up was another success! This time, the Joann Leleck team had the idea of installing a Little Library in the park. We filled 9 trash bags with glass, bottles and caps and a lot of plastic. Thank you to Mrs. Kline, the parent teacher coordinator at JoAnn Leleck Elementary school for coordinating the event and her husband for digging the hole on the grass to set up the little library. Thank you to my friends Ryan and Levi for helping today. It was also nice to meet Dr. Barber who is Joann Leleck’s principal. This was a different cleanup because we were able to see the installation of a little library book exchange and fill it up with some books we donated. And also we did a new activity wich was for people to write on a tri-fold what they would say if they saw someone drop trash on the floor.

This time we partnered with St. Francis school to help clean the grounds of the school and also Broadacres park.

Our first clean up was a total success! Thank you to all the amazing volunteers who made this happened!