OVERVIEW
Once a month, every month our group the Rice Coalition on Hunger and Homelessness hosts a volunteer service event at Rice University, we call: “Sandwiches for All“. The idea is simple. We gather as many students, friends, family, and eager volunteers to a central location and work together to prepare sandwiches and sack lunches for Houston’s homeless. It seems like a small idea, but by bringing together so many people — we’re able to churn out huge amounts food in relatively short time. Before each event, we work through the logistics, raise the funds, and purchase the stacks of bread, PB&J, snacks, knives, and supplies needed to prepare 500 – 1000 sack lunches per event. Since we first started in Sep 2012, we’ve distributed over 20,000 meals to local shelters and charities, put in over 2,00 collective volunteer hours, and raised roughly $30,000 in grassroots fundraising.
Logistics
Started from a small pilot project between less than a dozen friends, Sandwiches-for-All has grown into a substantially larger endeavor — bringing together hundreds of volunteers from across Rice University and the extended community of Houston. In part, the success of the Sandwiches-for-All project hinges on how easy the volunteer process is made. Interested volunteers are notified via Facebook and other social media campaigns of coming events. A core team of coordinators then begins the process of raising funds, making supply purchases, and setting up the venue for volunteers. When the bulk of volunteers appear, the task of preparing sack lunches is straightforward and low-commitment. Sack lunches costs under $1.50 to prepare and contains a PB&J Sandwich, 2-3 snacks, and a “Help Card” listing all of the major shelters and resources available for the homeless. The entire process takes 1-2 hours with another hour allocated for delivery. All sack lunches are distributed across a large network of non-profits, including: SEARCH Homeless Services, Houston Food Not Bombs, Emergency Aid Coalition, Palmer Way Station, Lord of the Streets, Star of Hope Mission, the Salvation Army, Turning Point Center, and Kids Meals Houston.
Achievements:
Since September ’12, RCoHH has held 43 successful Sandwiches-for-All events.
Distributed a total of 20,502 meals to local charities serving the homeless and underprivileged.
Put in over 2700 collective volunteer hours.
Raised close to $30,000 in Sandwiches-for-All related donations.
Formed partnerships with nearly a dozen local non-profits serving the Houston area.
Hosted joint-events with two public middle schools as part of our outreach program, “Sandwich U.”
Featured in the Houston Chronicle, The Leader News, and the Houston ISD Blog.
Recipients of six community service grants and awards including the Aubrey and Sylvia Farb Service Grant and the Sodexo Youth Service America Award.
Start-Your-Own
Interested in hosting a Sandwiches-for-All Event at your own campus? Let us help. Through trial and error, we’ve discovered a thing or two about making sandwiches. If you’d like to host your own Sandwiches-for-All Event, feel free to send us an email at coalitionrice@gmail.com with the subject line of: “Sandwiches-for-All Help”. We can help you estimate costs, identify distribution centers, and generally avoid the blunders we made along the way. It’s a ton of fun and worth it in the end. Good luck!