Once a week, The Swell Collective features a tribe member living the tribe values out loud. BE GOOD. DO GOOD. SEE GOOD. SHARE GOOD.
Name: Jake Berlin Occupation: Middle Schooler and Do-gooder. Organization Name: Project SGL (Show God’s Love) is about helping homeless people and showing them God’s Love thru actions and Truth. 1 John 3:18
Contact Info:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-SGL/243953765799599
What change in the world would you like to see through the work you’re doing?
I help homeless people by giving them bags of snacks, water, bibles, and I pray for them. My website on Facebook is called Project SGL (Show God’s Love). The change in the world i would like to see is people showing more love to the world.
Briefly describe the journey that brought you to the work you are doing today.
The story of what brought me here today is that I was in San Francisco and we walked by a man who was talking to us and we ignored him. When you see a homeless person don’t ignore them, take it from me you will regret it in the future. That person is now in my prayer book. So, I do this because [the] homeless are people too, and I don’t ever want to feel too rushed and busy to help. I want to help the world, others might see that and do the same thing.
What or who inspires you? Why?
God and Jesus inspire me to do this because I’ve heard and seen their miracles and blessings!
What is your greatest personal or professional challenge at the moment? How are you working to overcome it?
My greatest personal challenge is to talk to strangers (homeless people). I’m overcoming it by bringing friends of mine with me to give me courage to do my project.
What advice would you give your 18 year old self?
The advice I’d give to my 18 year old self would be to still do good and be grateful for all of my blessings over the years.
What is most rewarding about the work that you do?
The most rewarding thing thing about my “job” is that I get a smile from every person that I help. I received an award from the Mayor of Modesto and Modesto’s City Council for “Outstanding Commitment and Dedication to our Community by Creating Project SGL” by helping others through collecting donations and distributing them to the homeless. I’ve also had the opportunity to speak and promote Project SGL at a local church.
I started out by myself with my own allowance and after Facebook and talking at the church, I received donations of cash and goods, and had friends join me. My mom takes me to the dollar store to buy supplies that weren’t donated, like waters, the bibles, snacks. Each of the bags has water, peanut butter, crackers, gummy fruit snacks, also hand sanitizer. Sometimes stuff in the bags change depending on what I get a deal on, or what someone donates. Winter is coming so I will be adding gloves, and ponchos. I would like to work on getting backpacks too.
Anything else you’d like us to know or share with our fellow Swell mates?
As a tip to help not ignore homeless people, pretend that you were a homeless person and how you would feel. If you want, you don’t have to help them by giving them money. A nice smile or “God bless you” would be fine. I would also like to share that I keep a prayer book with [the names of] all my people that I help.
