On June 25, 2022, Shine City Project returned some love with The Just One Project! The Just One Project is a local, non-profit organization that inspires the community to get involved and make a difference! Every month, they connect members of the community to come help out at their Pop Up & Give events and help distribute food for individuals, families, and seniors. The Just One Project helps to serve more than forty locations around Las Vegas each month.
On this Saturday morning, our nine Shine City Project volunteers arrived at the Doolittle Community Center to help out with the distribution efforts. Two of our volunteers were joining us for either their first or second time! We had pallets of food to hand out including canned and frozen vegetables, nectarines, milk, cheese, boxed mac and cheese, fish sticks, and corn dogs! However, despite the large quantity of food, there weren't so many cars and people that came to the distribution location to receive food. Throughout the morning, we had a slow but steady trickle of people and cars who came to receive support. We suspect it may have been the hot weather which deterred people from going out.
Nevertheless, we gave cases of food to anyone who came to the Doolittle Community Center. The goal was to give away everything we had and leave nothing behind. Towards the end of the service project, a family consisting of a mother and a child, and possibly a grandmother, came to the Pop Up & Give. The mother had a strong accent, but regardless, we gave her as much as we could. After filling her trunk with food items, tears suddenly began to fall from the mother's face. She was overwhelmed by the amount of love and support that she was receiving. As it turned out, her family had come from Ukraine and were currently residing in Las Vegas as refugees. One of the volunteers of the Pop Up & Give rushed in to console and give the mother a hug.
It was surprising to learn that there was a family thousands of miles from home here at the Pop Up & Give. It was a humbling experience to be able to provide love and support for this family, but it was also a heartbreaking and reality-hitting experience as well. The events that are unfolding in Ukraine are unfortunate and tragic, and we pray that there can be more love and peace in this world. We hope that the food that we were able to give could be a source of love and comfort for this family.