This summer, Bucks County Housing Group welcomed an intern from the Foundation Community Partnership Summer Youth Corps. Andreas helped us for ten weeks, assisting with Together Tuesday, our staff retreat and a future run fundraiser. One day in the summer, all thirteen interns came to our Doylestown Food Pantry and assisted sorting vegetables, meats and other pantry essentials. You can read more about Andreas’ internship experience here.

Throughout the summer, students came by our main office in Warminster to drop off food, personal care products and backpacks. We created five drives that the community can do year-round, from food to bundle buckets to gift cards over the holidays.

The Central Bucks South Boys Soccer Team saw our Bundle Bucket flyer and had an idea! At every soccer game, they would ask their visitors to bring a personal care item. From dish soap to detergent and from Purell to paper towels, they asked their community to bring anything that will help keep BCHG’s 87 affordable housing units clean. After the season ended, they reached out to us to schedule a drop off date. We weren’t expecting much. They came in with a van full of personal care items, more than 100 in total! The Doylestown Athletic Association youth baseball team did a drive during their games as well! What a great idea!  

As summer break came to a close and the school year was approaching, we made an appeal for new backpacks full of school supplies. We still had supplies left from last year, and girls from the National Charity League came by to aseemble backpacks full of supplies. They assembled more than 50 backpacks for us to start the summer. Saanvi saw our Facebook post and decided to push herself for her Girl Scout Gold Award. She created a flyer, put together an Amazon wishlist, and reached out to community groups to assist her. She had all the supplies from Amazon sent directly to her house, and she took everything over to the Warminster Food Pantry to assemble. She called us on a Friday saying she wanted to come by the week after. We asked her how many backpacks she was able to assemble, and we were floored. She came by the next week with a van, complete with 130 backpacks full of supplies, additional supplies for students in need, and a 130 handwritten notes for each student receiving one of her backpacks.  

As the school year started, a student from Central Bucks East approached us with an idea to start a new club at school. Claire was starting the Feed the Need Club, and wanted to partner with Bucks County Housing Group all school year. Every month, the Feed the Need Club will work on a new project with BCHG. Just before school started, Claire and her friend came by to assist with our back-to-school program. They just had their student activity fair where they pitched the Feed the Need Club to the entire school. At their next meeting, BCHG will speak to the group about the impact they will make throughout the year for the community in their own backyard.

Students can do incredible things if they put their minds to it. By dropping off food, they can give a family comfort knowing that they will be nourished. By dropping off personal care products, they can give a family a sense of a clean home for a week. By assembling a backpack, they can give a student the feeling that they are like all the other students.