Sustainable Lunch Bags
Project Details
Location
Project Lead
Tackling plastic reduction and food security by providing sustainable lunch bags to an Alberta orphanage.
Project Description
Plastic pollution has been rampant and most of it go to our oceans, affecting our marine life and habitat. The global initiative of reducing plastic pollution, such as shoreline pickups and volunteering has been great thus far. Through my project, I would like to add to the collective effort of reducing single-use plastics and plastic waste in our daily lives. My project is to promote sustainability to our youth in a local orphanage by distributing lunch bags which includes reusable items such as food container, water bottle, face mask, spork, etc. Along with these, are crayons and USBs containing fun activities, such as printable colouring pages, fun facts relating to the ocean and resources about COVID & mental health from the local health services. My goal is to extend ocean literacy & conservation and sustainability through lunch bags in a safe space to vulnerable youth and hopefully some of them would also join Ocean Bridge in the future.
Biggest Challenge
The biggest challenge would be the pandemic. It was hard to find an orphanage that would be willing to accept my project since most of them are closed or that they weren’t accepting any donations at the moment. Thankfully, I found one and I assured them that the items are new and would be fully sanitized when packaged.
Valuable Takeaway
Doing the project has taught me kindness and people’s willingness to help out and support a good cause. An Etsy shop, where I bought the masks, gave me extra masks when I told them about my project. A friend of mine gave me discount at the store where I bought some of the items for my project. These brought down the overall cost and left me with some budget to buy other supplies, such as band-aids. In arriving Brenda’s House, the orphanage, they were very accommodating, despite the heavy snow that day. The project distribution was shared in their social media promoting Ocean Wise, for people to check out the organization and its work.
