Left-Right Jordan Mendez, his mom Khaleelah Bond, and Yonkers High School Teacher Ms. Kavanaugh
By Dan Murphy
It’s that time of year when we should all try to help others for the holidays. For the past two years, we have highlighted the efforts of Jordan Mendez, a high school student who started a food and clothing drive to help families struggling to make ends meet.
Two years ago, we met Jordan Mendez, a student at Yonkers High School. Jordan had been working with his student government to collect food, clothing, and hygiene products to give away at a holiday celebration at the Yonkers Riverfront Library.
Last year, Jordan was able to collect clothing to help his fellow students, “who felt insecure about their clothes.” “My desire to help people has manifested in my everyday activities, including turning gardening projects into a way to address food insecurity, using photography for social impact, and talking to people to inspire them to become uplifters. A small donation can make a big difference,” writes Mendez.
“I know most people want to help but don’t know how. So I came up with the idea of doing something and giving everyone the chance to help. “
“This year is The Moxie Project’s 3rd Annual Thanksgiving Drive where we will be giving food, clothes, hygiene products, and religious items for free, for all members of our community. Donating to this project helps us help the members of our community who deserve a good Thanksgiving. Any and all donations are appreciated.
“The Moxie Project started my freshman year in Yonkers High School. I was inspired to organize an annual thanksgiving drive when my mother decided to give away the excess food from the rest stations at the Tour De Yonkers biking event. It was something about being in Getty Square to feed others that connected my personal altruistic interests with an immediate path to help others.
“Effective activism is like a virus: anyone exposed to it is consumed by its effects and changes their actions in accordance. In a word, it’s contagious; seeing others smile and knowing they’re better off because of you is infectious and desirable to spread. That’s how I felt. I didn’t just want to help others, I wanted to share my love of helping with as many as I could.
“Over the past two years I’ve grown personally, professionally and intellectually. To have Moxie is to have courage, to have determination, to persevere; in a word, to have unwavering conviction and spirit. These are the traits that are necessary to create and execute a movement and thus, the traits that are necessary for us to activate in others. With not just a selfish desire but a moral imperative to do good, I wanted to turn The Moxie Project into an effort shared by all for addressing humanitarian crises anywhere I can.
“By the time this article is out, I’ll have submitted my Articles of Incorporation to make The Moxie Project a nonprofit. Through this project I have continuously fed members of the community through agricultural efforts and I’m looking to the City to help me institutionalize a sustainable infrastructure of services for Yonkers Residents.
“God willing, I’ll graduate next year as an eagle scout and although I’ve left Yonkers High School, I hope to have left an impact on that school and for Yonkers High School to continue with their support for the thanksgiving drive. I hope, with the support of the local government, to have established an urban farm dedicated to feeding single mothers and our homeless friends. I hope by the time I graduate, to have shaken the city and to have my neighbors as invested in this movement as I am.
“If anyone would like to contribute I have an active GoFundMe where people can donate money so we can do more good.
www.gofundme.com/f/donate-to-the-moxie-projects-community-drive?
Jordan is pictured with his mother and Ms. Kavanaugh from Yonkers High School. “Ms. Kavanaugh made this project possible by believing in me the most in this project. She let me take time out of her science classes to build support and put boxes in her classroom for students to drop off clothes. She also helped me organize the project conceptually. She played a huge role.
Editor’s Note: We hope this story has inspired you to try and make a positive difference in someone’s life this Holiday Season. Or at least to make a donation to Jordan’s Yonkers Moxie Project. And have a Happy Thanksgiving!
