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Toledo resident Jasmin Abu-Hummoss, a UT Graduate, is giving families a reason to be thankful during these tough times.
Jasmin was inspired by the story of a Syrian refugee who she met at a food drive. So inspired in fact she wanted to find a way to help him and his family stay warm this winter. Not just for him but also for any other family or member of the community who was in need of essentials before the cold winter months to come.
Social Media really became what it was made for, a way to connect with others. Jasmin along with the help of her friends and family used their platform to
ask the community for Donations for a coat drive. They requested new or gently used coats in good condition. In addition to coats they also requested other winter essentials like new gloves, hats, socks, and scarves. To truly allow for as much help as possible they even accepted cash donations through apps like CashApp and Zelle. From there they set up drop off dates and a location central to toledo for donations to be dropped off.
This was the first time Jasmin put together a coat drive here in toledo. After the first day of drop offs Jasmin said she was a bit worried because barely anyone showed. But the second and third day of drop offs they became so overwhelmed with donations they weren't sure they would be able to take them all home. Surely though they did and it took a village to sort through everything they received and everything that was purchased with the cash donations. Jasmin's friends Marwa Hassan, Noor Hassan, and Fatima Odeh were part of the team that helped sort, bag, and distribute the coats to the families in the community.
When everything was said and done all together they were able to give away over 200 coats to families in Toledo. Their goal was met and beyond.
For this story we were required to create a Steller story using only our smartphones. Steller is a social platform used by many photojournalists to tell stories with images, small clips and text. This was a bit different then what I was required to do in previous assignments. Some of the elements from previous projects like types of shots, collecting information about the subjects in my shots, and creating captions to tell a story were still relevant here. To add to it though we were required to gather video footage and interviews. This project required a bit more preparation than the ones before.
I found that it was helpful I knew information about the story before I actually showed up to capture it. This helped me to know what things to look for and what questions to ask. From there it was all about how to use the footage I gathered to form a story on Steller.