COMMUNITY INITIATIVES
SAY NO TO HUNGER
February 2019- October 2019
Say No To Hunger is a specified initiative targeting students at The U School who struggle with food insecurity.
DonCARES sponsors recommended students and their families with gift-cards to eateries, restaurants, and grocery stores. Through recommendations from school staff, DonCARES anonymously grants these stipends monthly. Food insecurity is rampant in low-income communities in Philadelphia. Since over 60,000 students live below the poverty guideline, @doncaresphila will work to combat this injustice. As an organization we believe no student should struggle with hunger especially when one of their goals is to do well academically.
MAN-UP w/SMOOTH
ONGOING
Man-Up is a specified initiative targeting male high school students at The U School. We specialize in providing support, guidance, and mentorship to at-risk males.
DonCARES collabs with SMOOTH Inc. Temple Chapter in providing insightful, educational, and engaging conversations for our male students. We address topics of conflict resolution, image, scholastic achievement, consent, and professionalism during our monthly conversations. The main objective of our conversations is to hold sobering conversations with our young men to prepare them to be successful students, community members, professionals, young men, sons, brothers, boyfriends etc.
STAY WOKE & VOTE
Sept/October 2018
In September 2018, DonCARES of Philadelphia, Inc. Executive Director Donovan Forrest worked with seniors at The U School on voter registration. Forrest trained a few seniors in Charlie McGheean's senior class on voter's education. The seniors then went on to register their peers on the voter education process.
In addition, DonCARES of Philadelphia, Inc. raised a total of $150.00 in one week for money orders so five seniors could purchase their required voter IDs in order to vote on November 6th.
HYDRATION WALKS
ANNUALLY
On Saturday, July 21, 2018, DonCARES of Philadelphia, Inc. and Strong Men Overcoming Obstacles Through Hard work (S.M.O.O.T.H Inc.) distributed cool bottles of water to Philadelphia's most vulnerable populations.
All in all, our volunteers distributed over one-hundred bottles of water to Philadelphia's homeless, mentally ill, and vulnerable populations in Center City Philadelphia. DonCARES of Philadelphia's Summer Hydration Walks was an initiative that was started in 2017 and has successfully distributed over three-hundred bottles of water to people in need.
#SHARETHELOVE
OCTOBER 2017
On Mental Health Awareness Day 2017, DonCARES in collaboration with the Progressive NAACP held a social media initiative where students at Temple University wrote encouraging messages on sheets of paper, took a picture with their message and posted in to instagram. All posts were hastagged with the words #SHARETHELOVE.
BRING BACK OUR GIRLS
APRIL 2017
Our Bring Back Our Girls Campaign was in response to the news of missing girls of color in Washington DC. Our executive director gave a lecture with the Progressive NAACP about the occcurence of human-trafficking in inner-city neighborhoods nationwide. In addition, our executive director used case studies on children such as Relisha Rudd to study the vulnerability of female children in foster-care and how community members can get involved in public safety and watchdog security.
Block Clean-Ups
Ongoing
Every Fall and Spring Semester, DonCARES collaborates with several student organizations from Temple University on block clean up at The U School in North
Philadelphia. All organizations fellowship and clean up trash surrounding the U School on Norris, Diamond, Franklin, and North 7th Streets.
WINTER HAT & GLOVE DRIVE
NOVEMBER 2016
Our Winter Hat and Glove Drive was an initiative in collaboration with The National Society of Black Engineers Temple Chapter. Collectively we collected about thirty winter hats and gloves for students in need at Bethune Elementary School in North Philadelphia.
Our donations were given to a third grade teacher. Upon our request they would be distributed to students who did not have hats and gloves to stay warm during the winter months.