What an incredible journey it has been. We finally made it to 20,000 masks.
From its conception roughly one year ago, HSFL has leaped and bounded from everyone’s expectations, including my own. With over 200+ member volunteers, I cannot be more grateful for the opportunity to grow, learn, and become who we are today.
For all those who were unable to come to our celebration, volunteers participated in several activities including stuffing heart pillows, cutting out hearts, packaging masks for our next donations to the VA Center, and putting together boxes for delivery. In the future, I would love to have more ou
tdoor activities — especially for middle school students to participate in, so they have live demonstrations on how to sew masks or can enjoy volunteering in the company of others.
To reflect on nearly a year’s progress, I first have to look to our humble origins. We initially began with a group of around 10-15 students or volunteers who were close friends of mine. But slowly over time, with the launching of our first Kickstarter and reaching out to new hospitals and eventually, detention centers and
orphanages, we were able to grow the number of volunteers working with us. I am so amazed that almost every single volunteer who was with us since the very beginning has stayed with us to continue to support the community. I am extremely proud that we have been able to build our own community of action-driven individuals who take pride in helping others.
One of the most significant moments that stayed with me is when I asked one of our long-time volunteers what motivated them to continue. Oftentimes, the work that we do can become repetitive (which is why we are continually trying to launch new projects with different non-profits) and volunteers can feel out of touch with the people they are actually helping.
This middle school volunteer simply responded, “Because it is the right thing to do. And I want to be someone who did a good thing when the rest of the world did nothing.”
These words are powerful and emotional because I believe this is the spirit of HSFL.
As we continue to donate to hospitals and other facilities, it is with this mentality that I hope we can continue our work. 20,000 masks is no joke and is a true representation of our progress thus far. To all our volunteers, thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s because of people like yourselves that we have been able to reach this tremendous number of 20K!
Written by Allison Moon
June 20th, 2021