#foodpath

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Krka waterfalls III

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Krka waterfalls III

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Krka waterfalls III by staerz

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Krka waterfalls III

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Krka waterfalls III

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Food Carnival @ NYP

Food Carnival

Hi everyone! The documenters are back and this week has been an exciting one! Finally, after all the hard work being put it in by the different teams for the carnival, it was being executed! All of us not only feel as though we a load has been lifted off our backs but we are also glad that we have done our best and are grateful for those who came to support us. Let us now share more with you about the carnival! Let us first introduce you to the booths at our carnival. Introducing ...

“Fastest and Strongest”

Participants would have to push a trolley filled with 14 kg of food within a certain distance using the shortest time possible. Why 14 kg? Because based on the latest statistic, Singapore had wasted 785,500 tonnes of waste, which is equivalent to 140 kg per person! Yikes. But of course because we couldn’t let most people push 140 kg, we downsized that to 14 kg, but it still does feel really heavy to push & sprint at the same time!

“Food in the Air”

Well, I guess you would know what this booth is about just by the name of it… here, a marshmallow is hung in the air and participants have to hop and squat down without using hands to get it. This was to demonstrate the struggle 1 in 10 Singaporeans face in trying to get basic needs such as food, shelter, clothes – but with more emphasis on food, of course!

“Is This You?”

Interesting name, don’t you think? Well, this booth features Daisy, the mannequin wearing a dress made out of 14 milk cartons and holding two bowls, where participants would pour the rice through, but it’s a trick! The 2 bowls have holes made in them where rice will fall out of regardless of how it’s being poured into the bowl. The cartons of milk tell participants that only 14% of food was recycled in a year, and that the two bowls represents the fact that two bowls of rice are wasted per person each day! This was all to alert the participants on the seriousness of food wastage.

“Agak Agak”

Participants had to put in a certain amount of food into the basket and amount it to 400 g. Why 400 g? Each person wastes 400 g of rice every day! That is is the equivalent of 2 full bowls of rice, every day. 400 g may not seem like a lot, but overtime this leads to a huge amount of food being wasted!

The ‘NEA Exhibit’ Booth

This is where participants were taught on how they could inculcate good habits to reduce food wastage. They had to strategically plan where to drop the disc so it lands in a green box and not a red box.

Redemption Booth

Participants can redeem attractive prizes once they have completed at least 3 out of the 5 booths!

$1 Pantry

People could get food items at $1 each, regardless of how much they cost in stores!

Food Collection Booth

Thank you so much to all those who donated food!   In the midst of managing the carnival, we did have some challenges that we had to face. On the first day, the turnout rate was low. Some of our FoodPathers did crowd pulling to get students to come to our event, but ended up facing quite a bit of rejection, and this dampened their spirits. We also happened to have one of our exam papers the next day, so everyone studied while manning booths at the same time. Everyone was stressed and this lead to a duller atmosphere of the carnival. It was also amusing how someone nearly thought that we were going to open up a tuition center and even asked one of the FoodPathers if that was the case!

However, we noticed that the $1 Pantry booth attracted a lot of students. Students could also win prizes from participating in the Instagram competition, such as FoodPanda vouchers and Starbucks gift cards. We decided to emphasize on winning these items while doing crowd pulling on the second day, hoping that more people will be willing to participate in our competitions and come to our carnival. On the second day, the turnout did improve but some came specially for the $1 Pantry, and the number of posts for the Instagram competition had only increased by 10. We knew right then that something had to be done to ensure our carnival was a real success! We decided that those people who had the skills and stamina for crowd pulling could do it for the entirety of the next day – as this can be very taxing for most people. We had people volunteer so they knew exactly what they were getting themselves into, and thankfully, we did have enough people who stepped up and faced the challenge. Some of the crowd pullers emphasized on the Instagram competition and some encouraged the staff and students to make a donation so that Food Bank can acquire food bundles for the beneficiaries. Those manning the booths just had to be more hyped up. Every FoodPather still had that little bit of hope in them – especially since it was the last day. The last day was the best and turned out better than expected! The crowd pullers did a good job, increasing the number of instagram competition posts from 10 on the second day, to 64 on the last day! We also ended up raising around $3220 in total from selling just food bundles! Those who were manning the booths were not only more hyped up, but had even pulled participants in and walked with them throughout the entire carnival. We may have had a rough start, but we sure ended on a good note. Well done, all Foodpathers! Okay, so here is some good news about the carnival. The students who participated in our carnival ended up gaining more awareness and learned more facts about food wastage – for example, how each person wastes two bowls of rice a day and to understand the struggle of those who have difficulty finding food in Singapore. Some expressed that they would also want to share their takeaways from the event with their family and friends! Their favourite booths were “Fastest and Strongest” and $1 Pantry, with the latter being no surprise since there was quite a crowd there. However, some of the students felt that the games at the booths could have been a little more challenging. Some also felt that the carnival could have been held at a better location and thought that we could be more hyped up. Overall, the carnival went pretty well for us FoodPathers and we were glad to see how all of us were not only united as one team in this, but were also adaptable to the changes needed to be made along the way and were open to how we could improve in order to make this event a great one. We were also resilient as this week was a challenging one for us having to cope with exams and running the carnival at the same time. Great job and thanks to the Logistics Team for allocating the manpower for the carnival, as well as leading the entirety of it. It was also the first time some of the logistics team members were overalls in-charge. They may have been nervous at the start but they did a good job!

Here’s a shout out to our members from the team and for their contribution to the project! Next, let’s give it up to the Programs Team for planning the booths and planning the activity segments of the carnival.

Thanks to the Sponsorship Team as without them we would not have our FoodPath shirts and we wouldn’t have much to give our participants! Finally, thanks also to the Publicity Team for spreading awareness and attracting people to come for our event! As for us Documenters, we could say we have done a good job of keeping everyone posted, haven’t we? :)

We FoodPathers are rather sad that the carnival has come to an end but hey, good job everyone for the hard work and keeping up the good spirit throughout the process.

Well, before I end, who are the winners for the Instagram competition? Let’s find out!

Congratulations to…. @ _bleedinghearts @ nabilgoonies @ davidbowenyip @ _jchk @ evansch52_ @ christopher_wants_nata_de_coco @ nur_akif @ thivya14 @ gennxx @ ann0ying_e Thank you for participating in our carnival! Next week, the documenters will be writing our last post, so do be on a lookout for it! Till next time! Signing off, The Documenters (Jodi)

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Food Collection Drive

This week at Foodpath

Ehyooooooo! Another week, another post! This week’s post will be covering mainly Day 2 of the food collection and the individual’s weekly updates from each group.

Alrighty then! Let us dive right into the main event of this week- Day 2 of Yishun Food Collection(16 Dec). For this week’s food collection, we visited different blocks as we had done from the last week’s with a few special units - some of which we had already visited. So the collection was largely similar, with Foodpath being split into groups and then into pairs, with each group being assigned different blocks and each pair assigned different units. If yall have read the previous post  (I hope you did hehe), we have learned from those challenges and worked upon them, refining our methods to be more efficient and effective. For example, the addition of an excel sheet to facilitate which units to revisit later on in the day in hopes of them being present, and how we started later hoping that more people would be home. However, having said that, similarly to life, when one problem gets resolved, another hundred pops up. In this case, a misallocation in blocks leading to some repeated blocks getting covered. Thankfully, with the quick decision making of both the ICs of that day, and the quick thinking of the Programs team, work was very quickly shifted around. Emphasizing on how important it is to always be ready for last minute changes and trusting your ICs! Bravo guys! *Claps in admiration*

Feelings from Day 2 were largely similar- we continued to get surprised by both the friendliness and kindness of the people. There was the willingness to share even when they might not seem to be the wealthiest of families. At the same time, due to there being more units than last week, all of us were constantly hot on our heels knocking on one unit after the other, getting more rejuvenated after each willing unit. Nonetheless, scenarios of rejection were still prevalent. But those moments only made us more motivated, pursuing those moments of heartwarming acceptance! To stare at dejection in the face, and to press forward! Hurrah! Some post-event reflections from the different groups would be that we are glad mostly due to how good the acceptance rate was, and that everyone’s efforts have paid off. When asked about a word to describe the experience, words like “Heartwarming” and like “Touched” came up often. It was an exhausting one, but we are already halfway through the race. JIAYOUS!

With the main event out of the way~ let us go down to each team and check out the latest buzz. *Buzzes off* bzzzt bzzzt

“Thankful” Were the words spoken by the Programs team when asked to describe the past week that had just passed. Thankful for the amount of effort that all the other groups have been putting into making the entire project an excellent one. The ones with the ‘bird's eye view’ of the project have been busy with a plethora of tasks. From planning the Day 2 Collection (last week), to finalising components of the carnival (happening from the 10 to 12 of January 2018). Meanwhile, taking a breather here and there to review past executions like the Yishun portion of the project and deriving learning points that are both good and can be improve. Another big task that has been assigned to them would be liaising with various Co-Curricular Activities (CCA) for performances during the carnival. Making it an event that surely one would not want to miss!

Speaking of keeping up to date, the Documenters have been busy with this very Tumblr page, ensuring that you guys – our audience – are constantly kept up to date with the happenings of the project. Having said that, our past week were mostly packed with compiling and editing of videos for our video updates, always so deceivingly simple those little devils, challenging the capabilities of both our brains and the ever so elusive editing softwares.

Next up, the Logistics team have been occupied with things like the previously mentioned excel sheets and purchasing of logistics for our many events. So, other than frantically keeping track the receipts that are very much valuable for claiming, what other things have they been up to this week? Sculpture making and floorplan drafting that is! In view of the upcoming carnival. Logistics will be in charge of mainly the layout of our booths, makings things go where they are best to be. And on top of that, they have been putting in effort in preparing very interesting things for the carnival too.

Speaking of upcoming things of excitement, the Sponsorship team has been hard at work! Brainstorming and searching around for things that can be put into the Goodie Bag. YES! The same goodie bag YOU too can win after you participate in our Instagram competition or at the game booths at our carnival! Meanwhile also juggling communications with Foodpath’s very own sponsors (some of y’all out there!), and also managing the volunteers. Ensuring that every one of those helpful souls is well aware of where and when they need to be. Allowing for the previously mentioned food collection to be as successful as it was.

Last but not least, Team Publicity have been too getting their hands down and dirty with all the work: Having their regular social media posts on our various platforms, spreading our gospel to the world. Both coming up with creative methods (I overheard some things fitting to this festive timing :3) and communicating with Foodbank on how we should tackle a final video. Much like how a great preacher spreads his gospel to those outside, Team Publicity too has done work on the inside, putting up posters within NYP to tell them about the upcoming event!

That's all folks for this week’s update! Do watch our video on the food collection, and stay tuned as we will still be posting updates!

Well Wishes and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

-   Documentors (Joseph)

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NYP Outreach!

NYP Outreach and Food Collection

Hello! We are back here again and thanks for stopping by to listen to our updates.

So, you must have been wondering, what has the FoodPath team been up to this week? Well, besides all the teams being busy with our tasks, we had already started on the NYP outreach and we finally had our first food collection on Saturday! However, before we tell you guys all about our NYP outreach and food collection experiences, let’s first check in with all the teams on what they have been up to for this week! Let’s go!

Okay, let’s start with the program team. They have been busy liaising with performers and finalizing the booths for our upcoming carnival. Speaking of which, our carnival is drawing nearer so do continue to keep a lookout for it because I promise you, it is going to be exciting! Well, that is not the only thing they are busy with. They have also been hard at work planning for our food collection and also collating the Yishun outreach excels. It really was not easy as they had to organise the groupings, which units to collect food from, as well as to co-ordinate the entire collection. Not to mention, they are now busy looking through the feedbacks from the team to make the necessary changes to ensure a smoother second collection next week. Good job program team, you guys are doing great!

Another team who had played a huge role in our first food collection is none other than the logistics team! Without them, the transporting of food from the units to the holding points as well as to FoodBank itself would not have been smooth without their help! Okay, so what is the logs team up to? Well, they were busy collating the evaluations for the first food collection. Now, they have to update the logs list and the floorplan for the food carnival. Two other tasks left on their plate is to confirm with the program team about the NYP collection games as well as come up with the scenarios and objectives for the design of the mannequin. Thanks for helping us with the organization of the logistics for the carnival logs team!

Well, in the midst of food collection one can get thirsty, but lucky for the whole of the FoodPath team, we had water sponsored for the tiring two day food collection drive. Who can we thank for that? Yeap, that’s the sponsorship team! Okay, so besides obtaining sponsored bottled water for the food collection drive, they were also responsible for the management of the volunteers for the food collection drive and the days leading up to it. Not too long ago, all the FoodPathers collectively voted for the design of the shirt. After agreeing on the chosen design, the sponsorship team is now busy collating t-shirt sizes from all the teams and sourcing for a t-shirt vendor to get the shirts produced at an affordable price. All of us foodpathers have to admit that we can’t wait to receive our new shirts! They have also just sent out some emails to potential sponsors and are currently identifying other new potential sponsors for the food carnival.

Right now, we will be moving on to see what the publicity team is up to. Lately, they have been actively updating and posting on instagram. Speaking of that, do continue to check out the posts @foodpathnyp, and if you have not do follow us on all of our social media platforms. We would love to have you on our foodpath journey as well. The carnival is also coming up, so the pubs team had been busy creating the art works for the carnival poster. Last but not least, they are also meeting up with Foodbank to discuss on the final video, which they are currently working on.

So, now that we have shared with you what the other teams are up to, it’s now our turn!  As usual, we have been uploading tumblr posts every week, so do continue to check them out so that you can find out more interesting updates from the FoodPath team. Recently, as mentioned above, we just had our first week of NYP outreach and we are still thinking of how to film it. Do not worry, we will eventually think of some great ideas like we always do. The video for the lecture hopping and briefing of the volunteers by spons team will be out by this week, so do check that out as well!

Moving on to the highlight of this week! As we had promised, we will share with you on our NYP outreach and food collection.

For the NYP outreach, many of us Foodpathers felt that it was different from the Yishun outreach. During the Yishun outreach we mostly went door-to-door raising awareness about food wastage and asking them to help us with a survey. However, as every team did the outreach at different locations in NYP, we either faced an individual or groups of students unlike the usual door to door outreach that we are accustomed to during our Yishun outreach. At times, we do not know if the students are busy with their work or rather not be disturbed by our intrusion. Thus, we were unsure of who to reach out too.  Some of the students were rather rude thus it had somehow affected our confidence level and self-esteem to continue reaching out. Nonetheless, we continued to press on in our outreach and remain hopeful that our fellow students will come down to our carnival to support us!

As for the food collection, many of us were shocked at the amount of food that the residents donated to us. Some expected to collect more food, some expected to collect less, but nonetheless, many of us were touched by their generous donations. It was a heartwarming experience and we were very thankful as some of the residents not only remembered, but some even went an extra mile to buy more food so that they can donate to us - something we did not expect. Despite it being a kind gesture on their part, we did remind them not to do so during the outreach but they still chose to buy more food when they found nothing in their pantry to donate. However, for those residents that did not remember, we were glad that they still took the time and effort to search through their kitchens to find food items to donate to us.

Well, besides that, programs team is hoping that the next food collection will be smoother. Due to unforeseen circumstances along the way during the first food collection, we encountered small hurdles but manage to overcome them. Examples of such would be conducting the food collection too early that some residents are still soundly asleep and how the door to door food collection ended earlier than predicted. Taking into account what we had experienced during the first food collection drive, we will further improve on the subsequent one. Well done to all Foodpathers- to those that organized and participated in the food collection drive!

The food collection may have been tiring, but it was definitely worth it! Till next time!

Signing off,