Sustainability Blog

Hello, I am Amogh Jadhav, a junior in Pennsylvania. As a kid, I always had a passion for being kind and helping out others, even if it means getting nothing in return. To me, however, I find a lot of inspiration and feel-good moments whenever I volunteer. Recently, I had volunteered for Cradle2Crayons in Philadelphia and had learned about the countless families with young children who are left without comfortable clothes. In Philadelphia, I learned that there are over forty five hundred homeless families and countless children who miss out on the feeling of new or comfortable clothes because of their poor economic situation. In fact, 23% of Philadelphia’s residents live below the poverty line, which is nearly twice the national average. Driven by my strong passion for helping others and an increasing interest in sustainable efforts of Philadelphia, I have decided to put my effort into creating a donation drive for my sustainability project with Gifted Gabber’s Sustainability Volunteering Challenge. In this blog, I want to share my experiences and information gained from participating in this challenge, hoping that my experience and work help to inspire others to join the fight against poverty. 

In the first week, I did not realize how much work I had cut out for myself, and it was extremely difficult to create ideas and raise awareness. However, as the week progressed, I gained the idea to start a donation drive with a couple of my friends! I came to this idea while volunteering in Norristown, PA, on a day off from school. I enjoyed my time that day and noticed a few other volunteers had brought in a few bags of clothes to donate. So, on that day, I decided that I wanted to create a donation drive for kids and families in need. To begin my journey, I consulted with a few friends and found some old packing boxes and wrote a few lines that I could send out on social media to raise awareness for our drive. We each placed cardboard boxes on our porches with labels for a donation drive. We realized that these boxes may not be sufficient, so we gained permission from our local libraries and public organizations to leave a donation box outside. Additionally, we opened an account for cash donations so that we can donate directly to these organizations in case they needed any items that we could not provide. 

We first started off slow, only gaining a few cash donations from school friends, however, as our social media posts were being posted, more and more of our neighbors came out and donated their gently used clothes. We started by collecting children’s clothes that were gently used and cared for. After gaining traction, we quickly realized that just collecting donations would not be enough, and we started an operation in my basement to sort and separate the donated clothes. As more clothes came in, more and more hours were spent organizing the clothes into specific bags. 

As my friends and I had gained traction, we were also mindful of our carbon footprint during this challenge. We did this by eliminating unnecessary car drives and took carpools too and from school. Ideally, we would bike to school, but we live far from school, so it became more convenient and time effective to carpool in my friends’ electric cars or hybrids. Throughout the challenge, we would bike to each others’ homes instead of polluting the environment with carbon emissions for a five minute drive. Additionally, we did all of our donations through an environmentally conscious manner, only using used cardboard boxes and reusing plastic bags for sorting. We each became more mindful of our driving habits, which made us safer drivers while also drastically decreasing carbon emissions. Although it was painful to drive slower than a snail, we learned to enjoy the ride rather and cherish nature and our time together over the merely twenty saved seconds from driving inefficiently. Lastly, to save on unnecessary car rides, we decided that we would only pick up the clothes when the boxes were full or after two weeks, and when we did pick up the donations, we would take a large car that would carry all donations at once, to save on gas.

However, carbon emissions were not the only thing we cut down on during our time in the challenge. We also cut down on water, electricity, and phone usage during the thirty days. We created a challenge to take showers under ten minutes, and use as little water as possible. Instead of turning on the fan all night, we would open a window and let the nighttime breeze cool the room down. Additionally, we cut down on our phone usage to help the battery last for an extra day and reduce charging cycles, which helps to reduce e-waste and helps us to stay more alert at our daily tasks.

By the end of our thirty day challenge, my friends and I took all the donations out from the basement to get ready to donate them. Even though we got small donations in the form of one or two large trash bags, we ended up with a large variety and assortment of different clothes. From childrens clothes, to clothes for adults and teens, we were honestly astounded and surprised with the sheer amount of donations that we received. Additionally, we accepted donations of baby clothes, children’s books, and anything else that may be useful to a family in need. We knew that not even a fraction of our donations would fit into any of our cars, so we decided to save up and invest our own money into renting out a larger vehicle to take our donations to the dropoff locations. We chose Cradle2Crayons, Mitzvah Circle, and the Give Back Box as our top three donation locations because they each provided a large impact in our local community.

Participating in the Gifted Gabber Sustainability Challenge has helped me become a more environmentally aware individual while also helping me create a lasting impact on my community that I will be proud to tell my friends about at school. As the weeks went on, the challenge grew from being a challenge to being a way of life. It was not easy giving up the comforts of my own car and the need to use my phone, but once I became accustomed to the challenge, everything felt amazing. Through this challenge, I have learned to be more mindful of the everyday decisions we make and how they impact the environment and others around us. Learning how to set up my own donation drive with my friends was a wonderful experience and it molded me into a better person than ever before. Thank you for reading my blog. I hope my story helps to inspire you to do something to change the world whether it be a big contribution or a small donation. 

BY: AMOGH JADHAV