Service Brings Communities Together: 1,000 Hygiene Kits for Children

Murmurs of people fill the air as you enter the gym of the UV Institute building. You find a seat, and soon after, a large crowd of young adults quiets down to listen to Sister Kristin Yee give her devotional address about service. For a time, everyone is focused on listening and learning

about the importance of caring for those around us.

Once the devotional is over, the crowd begins to move toward the tables set up in the back of the gym. Instead of simply going home after the devotional, these young adults have the opportunity to put service into action. At the tables are children’s hygiene kits prepared by Hearts Knit Together, ready to be assembled and eventually given to children in need.

This project was made possible through several groups working together. The Church provided funding for the supplies, and JustServe helped connect volunteers with the opportunity to serve. Hearts Knit Together was grateful to be part of an effort that brought together resources, volunteers, and a shared desire to help children in need.

The service project quickly becomes an inspiring environment of people talking, laughing, working together, and even marveling at the 3-in-1 Bluey shampoo. People who may not have known each other when they walked into the building are now standing side by side, putting the same items into kits and working toward the same goal. Together, around 1,000 kits were assembled.

Students starting their hygiene kit with one of the varieties of 3 in 1 shampoos

This is how service brings communities together.

United by a common goal, hundreds of college students came together, many of them strangers to one another, to put together hygiene kits for children. Each person may have only been responsible for one small part of the project, but when all those small efforts were combined, something much bigger was accomplished. Alone, this could not have been done.

The impact of that evening reaches beyond the walls of the UV Institute. The students had the opportunity to connect with one another through service, but their work will also connect them to children and families they may never meet. Each hygiene kit represents the time and effort of many people working together to care for someone else.

Service has a unique way of building community. It gives people a common purpose and creates opportunities to connect with others while making a difference in someone’s life. It reminds us that we do not have to know someone personally to care about them or to do something that can make their day a little better.

What a beautiful opportunity that is. To come together, serve one another, and see what can happen when a community works toward a common goal.