Brown Bag Project:
1. What is the Brown Bag project?
The Brown Bag project is a service-based project indented to address the
homelessness in our community. Whether it is to help the homeless person you
always see down the block, or the student who lives in their car, this project is
designed to lend a helping hand for those in need.
2. History:
Last semester a fellow club member had the idea of putting together brown
bags, filled with various food items collected amongst ourselves to give out to those
in need. We did this every week. The results were remarkable. The fact that a paper
bag with food in it can turn someone’s darkest hour into his or her brightest, is
amazing. Not only are we providing temporary nourishment, but we are letting
people know we care, and that alone is huge.
During the summer a few of us decided to get together to discuss the
potential impact this project could make in our community. We asked ourselves if
we could make this bigger, if we could create a movement, a tradition for Golden
West College.
3. Plan of Action:
The plan of action in short, is to collect as much food and money donations as
possible from family, friends, fellow existing clubs, students & faculty, local and
corporate businesses, organizations, religious establishments and anyone else we
could think of.
Then journey through local and distant neighborhoods with assorted
prepackaged goods, ranging from granola bars, water bottles, chips, Gatorade,
tissues packets, nail clippers, toothbrushes etc., on pull wagons . We’ll be going
door-to-door asking people to “build-a-bag”, similar to the process of creating a bear
at Build-a-bear workshop. Along with building a bag, we’ll be asking if the individual
would like to write a personal/inspirational note to the person who will be
receiving the bag. The person will then have the choice to distribute the bag him or
herself or have us do it. We’ll be doing this all semester.
Each item on the wagon will be sold at various prices. We are selling the food
items we receive as donations, and using the money donations we receive to buy
food items in order to keep this project running.
If possible, for food donations please keep track of who is donating what. For
example, if your next-door neighbor donated a box of granola bars, on the box write
“the smiths from Huntington Beach donated this”. We want this project to be as
personal as possible. 
We’ll also be providing our tax I.D. # to local and corporate businesses that
donate. If you would like a copy of our donation letter which includes our tax I.D. #,
please get into contact with our project manager, Daniel Jones (email:
dajofficial@gmail.com).
4. Objective, Intentions & Mission:
The sole intention & mission of this project is not only to provide temporary
nourishment for those who need it, but also to inspire present and future students
of Golden West to have an innate, instinctual impulse to help a fellow human being.
Further more, also to remind ourselves to be grateful for what we have.
In today’s world, especially in the United States, we tend to forget that having
a roof over our heads, clothes to keep us warm, and enough food to keep our bellies
full is a huge struggle for most. In fact if you have these things I just named, you’re
richer than 75% of the world’s population.
Our goal is to have 1000 brown bags ready to distribute on campus to
students by the 2nd week of the 2015 spring semester.
5. Where are we right now?
So far we have collected $120 and various toiletry items since the starting of
this fall semester.
6. Where to drop off donations?
Boxes will be placed around school campus where students can drop off
prepackaged food donations, more details on this soon.