Solidarity through volunteering—Michael Church

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My name is Michael Church and I am a 10th grader at The KAUST School (TKS). When the quarantine measures and partial curfew were introduced at KAUST, people were ordering masks from the Health, Safety and Environment department (HSE). I heard that it was a nightmare for the HSE to deliver out these masks considering the high demand. So I decided to help them out with the coordination and delivery, and with providing volunteers.

I am a member of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) which is an organization about service and life skills. My two brothers were also involved in it before me.

When the KAUST members of the community received forms to apply for masks delivery, my 19 fellow volunteers and I gathered at Al-Safa stadium’s training center to collaborate on distributing the masks, while observing physical distancing. The HSE handed us a list that included the number of members in each household, the type of masks they had requested, as well as an interactive digital map dividing the zones of the residential area. It took us two days to package over 3500 masks. Whether on our bikes or in a car with parents or with members of their households, the volunteers and I managed to deliver the masks to 1160 houses. There was a wide array of volunteers from different age groups and ethnicities and we had a lot of fun working together.

This experience is definitely something I will remember my whole life. It is a life-changing experience that I greatly learnt from. It allowed me to learn new skills, develop social and organizational skills, and meet new people. Volunteering makes you exposed to different people who share the same cause in times like this, which is simply to help one another and be safely together. Being isolated takes its toll on your social interactions. There are courses that volunteers have to take in order to ensure the safety of everyone.

I want to be able to give the community some hope that there are people out there who want to help to get through this. I want relieve stress of the HSE department while they are dealing with serving the KAUST community during this pandemic. Together, we are stronger.

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