By Sophie McKnight/Intern at United Way of Bucks County
Bucks Knocks Out Hunger (aka BKO) is quickly approaching. The UW Bucks staff has done everything they can to make this year’s event even better than ever before!
This week, my assignment was to create 10 posters to be displayed at BKO this Friday.
My goal was to determine what captions and pictures would fit best together to capture the audience’s attention.
Choosing the appropriate facts and statistics about hunger in Bucks County was important. I want the audience to understand the impact hunger has on people – and the impact that BKO will have on the county.
While creating the posters, I learned things about hunger in my own county that surprised me. Like how 4 out of 25 children in Bucks County are food insecure, and 9% of all Bucks County residents don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
It’s hard to believe there is so much need in Bucks County.
This project has opened my eyes to the serious problems facing our community, and how easy it is to help. Did you know that just 25 cents provides one meal for someone? I didn’t. But that’s how easy it is to make a difference.
Learning this, I wanted my posters to be motivational. I didn’t want people looking at them, reading the facts, seeing a picture of a sad kid, and walking away.
I wanted to provide the audience with facts that would inspire them to help their community.
For example, instead of listing how many people don’t have access to food, I wrote how Bucks County food pantries received 71,910 visits in 2017. I paired this fact with a photo from one of the Fresh Connect food sites, with a line of 50+ people waiting to get fresh produce. This helps our volunteers see how many people they are helping when they pack meals at the event.
Making these posters was a good way to learn how to frame a message for a particular audience and how to word my sentences so they are straight forward and easy to read.
Finally, just because BKO is this Friday doesn’t mean the door is closed for donations. Please visit https://uwbucks.wpengine.com/bkohungerto donate and learn more about how you can help!