The John Fylpaa Leadership Institute (JFLI) has created a two-day Care Kit Drive in which people can donate supplies for the homeless. The first day of the event was on Tuesday, March 23.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
JFLI is a seven-month program at Long Beach City College consisting of 20 students who come together to learn how to become civic leaders through the means of field trips, guest speakers, and community projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this year\u2019s project, JFLI has decided to collect hygienic product donations for the homeless community. They are asking for supplies such as toothpaste, disposable masks, 8 oz water bottles, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The club has had a history of service projects, such as in 2019 when they created the Viking Closet which included toiletries, school supplies, and gently used clothes free for students in need. But this year\u2019s cohort has chosen to focus on a group of citizens who have faced the most challenges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe idea was to understand the situation we\u2019re in right now with COVID-19,\u201d said Hazar Diaz, a current JFLI member. She also said, \u201cWho\u2019s one of the most vulnerable populations? The homeless. If they don\u2019t have proper hygiene, they\u2019re at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In January of 2020, there were reportedly 2,034 people classified as homeless in Long Beach, a 7% rise from the 2019 count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the past year as the city has been hit by COVID, members of JFLI, such as Esmeralda Medina, argue that this community of people have been let down by their city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, as the pandemic began, we saw\u2026 homeless people being kicked out of their area because supposedly they would be a risk to the other neighborhoods. In Long Beach, as well as other cities like LA, [homelessness] got worse,\u201d said Medina. \u201cThere was so much vulnerability and instead of helping those people they were just driving them away from their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Tuesday, cars lined up at the LAC Campus in Lot 1 and dropped off various requested supplies. This was also occurring while the Viking Vault was having their Grab-n-Go drive, a weekly event where students can pick up free groceries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Derek Oriee is LBCC\u2019s student activities advisor and serves as leader of JFLI\u2019s 2020-2021 cohort. According to him, the Care Kit Drive\u2019s donations will be going to the Long Beach Rescue Mission as well as to LBCC\u2019s basic needs program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although this past year has been unlike any of the previous, the members of JFLI are making an effort to not let this delimit their community service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis program started online and has been online since, so it\u2019s very difficult to get to know everyone on a personal level but we\u2019ve made do with what we have access to,\u201d said member Inioluwa Adeoluwa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second day of the Care Kit Drive is scheduled for April 13th<\/sup> from 1pm-3pm in Lot 1 of the LAC Campus. JFLI is asking for prepackaged hygienic donations in large zip-close bags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any questions regarding the club or the donation drive can be sent to Derek Oriee at doriee@lbcc.edu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The John Fylpaa Leadership Institute (JFLI) has created a two-day Care Kit Drive in which people can donate supplies for the homeless. The first day of the event was on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":6992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[3588,3368,3367,47,3589,3590,3591],"class_list":["post-6991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-care-kit-drive","tag-grace","tag-grace-hughes","tag-homeless","tag-jfli","tag-john-fylpaa-leadership-institute","tag-viking-closet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Skgy-1OL","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lbccviking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/News_20210325_CareKitDrive_GHughes_0921-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1661&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6993,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6991\/revisions\/6993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}