The Food Donation Drive was in collaboration between many organisations, driven by the UN's SDG #12
For the past month, I have been dedicating most of my time volunteering with AIESEC at the University of Malaya for their Clean Our Plate project. Our goal was to raise awareness about food waste management and to help those affected by food insecurity in the current pandemic.
Our activities were based on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals #12 — Responsible Consumption and Production.
Apart from conducting online awareness workshops for secondary school students and podcasts about food waste, we were also organising a Food Donation Drive with the aim of helping 150 individuals in need.
The Food Donation Drive was done in collaboration with Yayasan Food Bank Malaysia; the funds raised by us were passed on to them for food purchasing and distribution to those in need. Each of us, called Local Virtual Volunteers (LVVs), had a personal fundraising target of RM400.
Check out the fundraising page. Link below!
The fundraising process was a new experience for me, and it was not easy to find people to donate to online initially.
I made a poster and shared it a few times on my IG story but received no donations. After a few days of zero donations, I began to reach out to people personally; my friends, teachers and family. To my surprise, most of them appreciated the effort and were willing to donate.
I couldn't understand why no one had taken action after seeing my IG story.
Despite the initial challenges, I was able to successfully collect a total of RM851.86 worth of donations from 42 kind individuals.
This exceeded my personal target and made me incredibly happy. The overall experience of volunteering and fundraising was incredibly fulfilling, and I felt that I was finally doing something for others and being useful to my community.
Before this, I had been primarily focused on personal pursuits such as learning a new language, acquiring new skills, and preparing for my Bachelor's degree.
I guess the volunteering isn’t a bad decision at all and I wish to do more in the future.
For those who wish to fundraise, I would recommend:
- Designing posters and posting them on your social media accounts to attract donors.
- Being sincere and reminding yourself of the reason why you are doing this.
- Choosing a reliable website for transactions, such as GivingHub.
- Being detailed with the information that you share.
- Sharing about the fundraising with your friends, family and the local communities.
- Remembering that fundraising can be difficult and frustrating, especially if it's your first time, but you have the support of your friends and family.
Lastly, I would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who supported me throughout my journey of volunteering.
Thank you for helping me get this fundraising off the ground.
And thank you to all the donors, your kind gestures and messages were greatly appreciated.