In our ASH mission we strive for a learning environment where, “we build a better world as we become better human beings, hear and value every voice, keep every promise, and celebrate every achievement.” Every year, a group of ASH students participates in the service learning opportunity Operation Shoebox, in which serving the wider community is the focus. None of our students get involved with these types of opportunities for recognition or congratulations, but they do it to uphold the ASH core values. They truly do hear and value every voice and so today we want to celebrate the achievements of Operation Shoebox this year and in sharing the story from the students involved, it might inspire other members of our ASH community to get involved in a service opportunity in the future. Anouchka, one of the student leaders of this initiative this year wrote her own reflection on what it has meant to be involved with this project and the impact it has had.

So first of all what is Operation Shoebox? It is a project where people donate shoeboxes filled with items, such as toiletries and clothing to people in need. ASH participates in this initiative every year with a different team of student leaders. This year this initiative was led by Anouchka, Alvaro and Marijne and as a team we decided to donate to the homeless shelter in The Hague, to help out those in need within our local community. We asked students and parents to help by donating a total of 220 shoeboxes to the shelter, including 165 boxes for men and 55 boxes for women. In these shoeboxes, we asked families to include toiletries and necessities that they thought would be useful for the homeless.

I chose to get involved in this project because I’ve always participated in it when I was in elementary school by bringing in a filled shoebox and I thought it would be a good experience to be the one to lead it this year. It was a very positive and valuable experience for me because it helped me develop my leadership, communication and collaboration skills as well as help out my local community through a student led initiative. Especially due to the pandemic, many people are facing unprecedented hardships, to be able to help our local community even in a small way is extremely important and rewarding.

Operation Shoebox is helpful to people in need because it gives them the necessities they can't always afford. It also helps the homeless shelter who already pay for food and shelter and thus cannot afford to pay for toiletries as well. When the homeless receive the shoeboxes, it is always a nice surprise and is not only useful but also lifts their spirits especially during these difficult times. Being homeless is extremely challenging and can come with shame at times which is why it’s so important to help people feel valued and appreciated.

It was more challenging this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic because we had planned to collect and donate the shoeboxes in January, however, the lockdown forced us to postpone the project. It was also difficult to organize the boxes while in hybrid learning, because we could never have the whole team at school at the same time to work together. However, I think that this challenge made the team stronger and although there were several setbacks in the end we managed to collect over 200 shoeboxes that were then safely delivered to the homeless shelter and handed out to the homeless on Good Friday. 

I think that Operation Shoebox is a great way to get involved in your community. It is already relatively structured and straightforward but also student-led which helps students to get a sense of planning and initiating a project. It is also very fun to make posters to advertise and to organize the boxes before donating them. Lastly, there's nothing more fulfilling than to see photos of the people receiving their shoeboxes with a smile on their face all because of something you organized. Helping others and improving someone's life positively can seem overwhelming but Operation Shoebox provides a great framework to take that step!

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