#servethecitymaastricht

[servethecity-maastricht-blog]

Porta Serves The City •Many people doing small things together can make a BIG difference• Hoe 1 school de droom van 2 leerlingen omarmt en daarmee 3 voedselbanken in Maastricht een hart onder de riem steekt. Het Porta Mosana College, locatie Molenweg organiseert in samenwerking met Serve the City Maastricht twee keer per maand een inzameling van Food en Non-food producten om een bijdrage te leveren de armoede in Maastricht te bestrijden. Naast het inzamelen van producten beogen we ook het vergroten van de bewustwording onder de leerlingen en leerkrachten van het schrijnend percentage van 16% van de Maastrichtse bevolking dat in armoede leeft. Woensdag 21 juni zal de laatste inzameling plaats vinden van dit schooljaar en we nodigen u uit er bij aanwezig te zijn. Het is een kans om samen het verschil te maken voor een ander door met zijn allen een bijdrage te leveren in de vorm van een product. Een uniek project voor Nederland waarbij een middelbare school in samenwerking met een mondiale vrijwilligersorganisatie op structurele wijze het thema armoede onder de aandacht brengt door praktisch het verschil te maken en te investeren in de toekomst. Porta Serves the City wordt ondersteund door de Gemeente Maastricht. --- Mijn naam is Ceriel Knols en ik ben projectleider van dit initiatief. Ik ben dankbaar te zien hoe deze school de leerling ruimte geeft zich te ontplooien in maatschappelijke betrokkenheid en de ondersteuning die we daarbij mogen ontvangen van de leerlingenraad. Het is bijzonder te mogen ervaren hoe er zaadjes geplant zijn door broer en zus, Juul (15) en Puck (14) die tijd en aandacht nodig hebben om te ontkiemen, maar zodra dat gebeurt, is het een kwestie van kruisbestuiving en lijkt het als vanzelf te gaan. Alles dat aandacht krijgt, groeit en ik vraag jullie met mij dit project onder de aandacht te blijven brengen zodat we met zijn allen hét verschil maken voor de inwoners van onze stad Maastricht. Wilt u meer weten over dit project of hoe we samen hét verschil mogen maken? Neem gerust een kijkje op de website www.stcmaastricht.nl of via Facebook www.facebook.com/stcmaastricht/ of neem contact op met ceriel@stcmaastricht.nl ----------------------------------- •Many people doing small things together can make a BIG difference• How 1 school embraces the dream of 2 students by helping 3 foodbanks in Maastricht: The Porta Mosana College, located in Molenweg, organises two food and home product collection days a month in collaboration with Serve the City to help fight poverty in the city of Maastricht. In addition to collecting these products, we want to raise awareness among students as well as teachers about the people of Maastricht living in poverty, which amounts to 16% of the population. This is a unique project for the Netherlands, where a middle school and a global voluntary organisation is working together on a structural basis to not only help in practical ways, but also invest in the future. Porta Serves the City is supported by the City Council of Maastricht. --- My name is Ceriel Knols and I am the project leader of this initiative. I am so grateful to see how many opportunities the school provides for the students to carry out their social responsibility, and the help we receive from the student board. It is amazing to see how the seeds sown by siblings Juul (15) and Puck (14) have grown so fast simply because of cross pollinating - the sharing of resources, enthusiasm and compassion. Everything you give attention to, will grow eventually; therefore, I ask you to keep giving your attention to this project so we all can work together and make a difference for the citizens of Maastricht! Would you like to know more about this project or how we together can make the difference? Feel free to have a look at our website www.stcmaastricht.nl or our Facebook page www.facebook.com/stcmaastricht or contact ceriel@stcmaastricht.nl

[servethecity-maastricht-blog]

Porta Serves the City

123000 people live in Maastricht. 1500 students go to Porta MosanaCollege. 2900 kids in Maastricht live in poverty. 16% of the people in Maastricht live in these circumstances. Porta Serves the City in numbers: We have had six collection days so far. We have been able to collect 30 packages till now. 3 food banks receive the packages we collect 10% of the students donate to this project on each collection day. The goal of this project is to raise more awareness among students and teachers about the poverty in Maastricht, and how they can make a difference for someone else by donating. We hope to provide information about and connect the food banks in Maastricht with the Porta Mosana College. We want to reach out to more students and teachers on each collection day, showing them that small acts of kindness can make a BIG difference.

[servethecity-maastricht-blog]

Here’s a sneak peek at our events this month! Want to volunteer with us? Sign up now! You can find more details about these events and the register for them via our website: http://stcmaastricht.nl/events/

[servethecity-maastricht-blog]

Ideas?

Do you have ideas for projects and events to make our city a better place and help it's residents? Would you like to be more involved with Serve the City? Contact us at info@stcmaastricht now!

[servethecity-maastricht-blog]

Introducing : Random Acts of Kindness, a small-scale practical serving project aimed at helping families in need. People going through the major storms of life, let it be limited movement, sickness, low income, divorce or grief, find it difficult to carry on with household activities that may seem simple to others. This project focuses on showing compassion, bringing hope and love not just merely by serving in practical ways, but by getting to know the people who we serve better, and being a friend that they perhaps never had. Life storms are less weary when you have somebody who is there for you to help you overcome them. The practical work includes light construction work, gardening, assembling or disassembling furniture and cleaning, among other things. Each location generally requires 3-5 volunteers. The goal of this project is to have several small groups of dedicated and skilled volunteers who could work together as a team at different locations/homes on the same day and time. This would allow us to help and reach out to more families in Maastricht every month.

[servethecity-maastricht-blog]

On March 26th, 2017, Serve the City kicked off its first ‘Cross the Line’ Community Dinner, which aimed at crossing lines to build bridges and connect people from different walks of life and different parts of society in the city of Maastricht. Both the guests and volunteers were a mixture of first-timers and familiar faces. When asked how they heard about the event, most said through word of mouth from friends and family. It was a beautiful and enjoyable experience. One of the guests described it as lively and bright like the weather we had that day! During the course of the evening, people got to meet and speak to new people that they probably would otherwise not have. Some people even made plans to meet up again later that week. For some, even if they didn't socialize much, they really enjoyed being a part of the volunteer team, seeing everyone put in their best efforts and seeing different people work together to make that evening possible. In addition, there was a great spread of food, brought by several volunteers, which, as rightly described by another one of the guests, was “a delightful spectrum of flavour”. Guests and volunteers also really appreciated the availability of childcare, allowing the children to have fun getting their faces painted, playing games and running around being kids whilst their parents could relax, enjoy some great food and get to know other parents, knowing that their children were in safe hands. Overall, the aim of lines being crossed was achieved, but we’re looking forward to even more line crossing in the future! We hope you come and join us as we do, at the next one, on May 27th!