Collect Change, Fill Bowl, Fight Hunger

It's that simple to help feed a child in need. With the help of Oakbrook this year many children are now getting more meals because of the spare change that was collected. Who would have thought that our spare change would help? I have learned so much from this project. It has been an unbelievable experience that I will never forget. Although I would get stressed out at times it was worth it. From starting this project there is an orphanage in Nicaragua called New Life Orphanage that is now being sponsored by Rice Bowls. When I went a couple weeks ago to Nicaragua we got to visit and it happened to be right at lunch time. The children had rice, chicken, and potatoes to fill their little bellies. It was an incredible sight to see. This project has been such a blessing and taught me to be thankful for all that I have and to also share what I have. I am so thankful that I was able to take part in working with Rice Bowls! 

Going to the Chapel...

This Wednesday at chapel Dodd Caldwell who works for Rice Bowls came and spoke! I think that it went very well and hopefully everyone enjoyed it! He showed a few pictures of children and told their stories and I hope that those pictures and stories helped everyone to be encouraged to bring in money for Rice Bowls! I leave for Nicaragua this Saturday morning at 5:30 and get to see one of the whole reasons that I chose this project in the first place :) I can't wait! 

Everything's Out!

This is the flyer that I sent home with every student at the school. For K4-5th grade I put them in Thursday folders and for 6th-12th grade I put them in their english classes. 

This week I finished making the Rice Bowls, flyers, and sheets that go with the Rice Bowls. After spray-painting the bowls, gluing rice to the cardboard, and the cardboard to bowls...I had a finished Rice Bowl! Time consuming: slightly! But definitely worth it! I sorted and counted out flyers to go in Thursday folders and to the high school students then passed out the bowls to K4 through 12th grade class rooms. There was never a dull moment in the process but it all got done! It is such a relief to have everything done and now all that is left to do is to keep up the momentum and get everyone to bring in money to fill up the bowls! I'm very excited about seeing how everything goes with doing the project a little bit different this time! 

I made one of these for each classroom so that it could sit with the Rice Bowl in the class and each one has a different child on it from Rice Bowls sponsored orphanages from around the world. 

Looky Here!

Finished Product!

So I have started making the large bowls and they should be done by this weekend and hopefully out to the classrooms late next week :) Here is what they are looking like!!

Painting the bowls!

Here's what's Happenin!

I have gotten the "OK" to go ahead and move forward with the plans that I have made for doing Rice Bowls again from all of those above me so I am ready to share my plans! 

• I am going to make a larger Rice Bowl to place in each classroom and homeroom throughout the school. With it I will put pictures of children that the money is going to help and statistics about how much money feeds how many children and for how long. (These will replace the individual bowls that were passed out previously and money will be collected this way.)
• I am going to find a chapel day for either Johnny or Dodd to come and speak.
• With the 3rd-5th graders I would like to serve them rice one day so that they know what it is like to eat only rice for a meal. I want to do just those grades because they are the ones that it would greatly influence and they would understand it more so than the primary children. 

I am very excited about the plans that I have. The most difficult part of this process will be making the larger Rice Bowls to put in the class rooms but I love getting creative so hopefully it will not be too hard and I will enjoy making them! :)

Did You Know?...

Did you know that the worldwide average amount of money it takes to feed a Rice Bowls partner on a daily basis is $.75? And that a plate of food that a child will get looks a little something like this...

These are all some of the things plus more that I will be including on my Rice Bowls project this term. Things are going to be done a little bit differently but I am very excited about the things that I will get to do and hopefully things are going to work out even a few bumps in the road come up here and there! 

New Plans

I've got all kinds of thoughts running through my mind on what to do for this next Rice Bowls handout! I have several people that I need to talk to before I lay any plans down though so until I talk to everyone I'm going to keep everything a secret....shhhh! But as soon as plans get finalized and in to place I can't wait to let everyone know! Thanks for the support! :)

Creativity

I have the main concept of my timeline for this semester complete! But now what I want to work on is how to make Rice Bowls the second time around at OPS more creative. I have several people that I need to talk to in order to get permission/the "ok" to pass Rice Bowls out again. For making my project more creative though I have gotten in touch with my mentor and we are going to talk and figure out ways to make the project more appealing and creative! I hope to talk with her as soon as possible but with both of our busy schedules it may take a while to get together. 

The Next Step

So I'm in the process of figuring out if and how to do Rice Bowls again this semester. Everyone else in the senior class does the majority of their work on their projects the second semester where as I have already done my whole project. But I am more than willing and would love to do it again. Before I do that there are several people that I need to talk to and things that I need to arrange to make sure things go just as smooth if not smoother than they did the first go around. I do want to hand out Rice Bowls again but I do not want to seem like I'm asking too much of Oakbrook even though what they are helping me with is an amazing cause. Once I talk to everyone that I need to talk to and get plans made then I will see where things go from there! 

Back Again

So after a looonngggg break of lots of time with family, food, and snow it's time for school again. Getting back into the swing of things starting Friday (well basically Tuesday) was a little tricky but it is all working out!
I still need to take the check from all of the Rice Bowls money collected to Johnny R. because he has been out of town and our timing for me getting to run it by their office just hasn't been working out but I want to get it there as soon as possible (it is kind of nerve racking having a check for that mush sitting on your bulletin board!) But I can't wait to take the check to him and get that money to those children!
You can check out  http://www.facebook.com/ricebowls and it is the Rice Bowls Facebook page that has pictures of the orphanages and more and a couple weeks ago they gave a shout out to Oakbrook! It's a neat page! I can't wait to see where this project takes me! 

The Grand Total....

And the GRAND TOTAL is.....


$3046.85!!


Great job and THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone at Oakbrook that helped me with collecting change for the Rice Bowls! This money is going to feed so many children and I know that they will be extremely blessed by all of it!