Mustard Seed Project

Mustard Seed Project aims to break down the misconceptions surrounding homelessness and educate people about our homeless neighbors. In addition, we offer services that aim to solve the problem of homelessness at its roots, not simply just applying a band-aid to the problem. In doing this, we hope to help our homeless neighbors transition into a different stage in their lives and ultimately change their lives for the better.

On college campuses (UCSD, SDSU, UCR), we recruit and train dedicated, passionate individuals who will help us in our cause. Our student volunteers then actively spread information about the state their community's homelessness to their peers, as well as promote our goals and missions through fundraisers, social gatherings, and workshops.

On the streets, our student volunteers go out on weekly outreach trips to pass out basic necessities (food, water, hygiene products, etc.) to collect information such as testimonies to better understand the state of living of homeless individuals in our communities. In doing this, we create a continual presence in the community, establishing a trust with homeless individuals that allows us to help them through our case management program. In addition, our volunteers reach out to local businesses to ask for their support in our mission, increasing community participation.

One-on-one, our student volunteer case managers work with their clients to help them create time-oriented, measurable, and realistic plan to help them achieve their goals. These goals can range from building resumes, finding employment, apply for housing, or finding legal aids. In addition, qualifying clients are eligible for VCM Funds, which are money set aside for emergencies. This fund is designed to ease the stress of day-to-day survival, allowing our clients to better focus on changing their lives for the better.

Every academic year, we recruit more student volunteers from our three college campuses. Currently, we have a total of 200+ active volunteers helping us accomplish our mission, with more coming in as we establish economies of scale by creating a stronger and well-known presences in the communities that we serve.

So far, we have:

-Established three chapters at UCSD, SDSU, and UCR
-Recruited over 200 active volunteers
-Connected 20+ to Resources and Programs since the establishment of our Case Management Program in 2018
-Provided 200+ homeless individuals with basic necessities per week

In the future, we plan to:

-Open up a total of 5 chapters on different college campuses, as well as establish case management programs in all 5.
-Successfully manage 20 cases per year
-Recruit a total of 500 active volunteers