August Blog: Getting the Ball Rolling

Welcome back, everyone! School started three weeks ago and PILTers are already planning projects for the semester: Josephine plans to have a hygiene drive at Albert Einstein Academy Charter Elementary School, Esli and Malia at Academy of Our Lady of Peace will host a clothing drive supporting Monarch School in September, Arturo is partnering with Outreach Club and Eco Club to host some donation drive, and Community Outreach Club at San Diego High School plans to do donation drives and monthly pizza sales.

This year, Minori and Aya will support PATH by applying for a grant. Last year, Minori secured a $25,000 grant from PWC Foundation for PATH’s Veterans Program with her dad. Aya and Minori hope to be able to continue securing grants for PATH and support their efforts. 

Along with grant research and application, Minori (Director of Outreach) and Aya (Associate Director of Outreach) will begin their fall outreach this month. They will reach out to all schools within San Diego County and any like-minded clubs to recruit more partners. The objective is to get schools and clubs more involved by getting the students to set up a community project to support people experiencing homelessness, whether it’s for direct outreach, PILT, or one of PILT’s partner organizations like PATH, Sharia’s Closet, Kids Outreach Initiative, or YMCA’s Housing Our Youth and Transitional Age Youth programs.

Besides planning, PILT has already reached some milestones. Nicolo was appointed to the position of “Treasurer and Director of Finance” in mid-August. He will support Minori by keeping track of financials and writing the annual treasury report. We still have new members coming in from San Diego High School due to Community Outreach club, so more positions might be filled if interest for PILT is expressed. San Diego High has been promoting their PILT-partnered club, Community Outreach, and has gained lots of interest at Club Rush. Along with the interest at SDHS, Sarah, at 8 years old, is a new member at PILT. She saw someone experiencing homelessness and the unfairness of their struggles hit her. This semester, she plans to host a donation drive at her school.

PILT’s first group project is coming up this weekend! On Saturday, PILT and Community Outreach members — as well as those interested in assisting those going through homelessness — will be participating in a dinner service at PATH Connections. We will include more details in the next blog and post about the hands-on opportunity on our social media platforms.

The PILT team has been working hard, especially our Website Manager, Anya, to keep the website updated with relevant information, including recent photos and easily-accessible organizational details. Please check out our website to learn more about our organization and follow us on Instagram, FaceBook, and Twitter for more. We will be posting another blog next month.

Thank you so much and please take a moment to visit our GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-pilt-to-end-homelessness and consider donating to our organization. All profits will go to PILT projects supporting partner organizations and supplying materials for the PILT team.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to sharing about our progress and accomplishments next month.

Go PILT!!!

— Minori