Last week, we had our first atlasGO volunteer day as a team. For atlasGO, it’s so important to continuously give back to our community. We want to do this by volunteering our time and really understanding the issues going on in our community, and communicating them.

So today, we wanted to share our volunteer day with Simply the Basics. Simply the Basics’ mission is to provide for individuals, organisations, and communities their most basic needs with dignity so that they can focus on bigger goals. They simply remove barriers, allowing people to have the opportunity to achieve.

So what did we, as the atlasGO team, do?

We packed 200 hygiene kits that Simply the Basics then ships out to different shelters they partner with. This helps one of the three pillars of their work, which is around improving the health and wellbeing of the homeless by solving the operational challenges faced by the organisations in this space.

So we filled these bags with soap, shampoo, deodorant, combs, and other basic products that are so critical to taking care of someone’s basic needs. We learned that these are filled with small travel-sized items because as people are on the move, it’s important these kits come to them regularly as opposed to carrying heavy products.

Simply the Basics works with many partners in San Francisco and has built strong relationships with them to truly understand what their needs are. This helps prevent unwanted donations. For example, a large donation of tampons to a men’s shelter is rather useless when on the contrary, it is a very big need in women’s shelters (true story, this happened).

So if you’re looking for ways to support the homeless community of San Francisco, please get involved with Simply the Basics. You can volunteer your time or donate funds directly to them. It’s a completely volunteer-based organization filled with passionate individuals.  

This was a first to our monthly commitment we’re making and very excited about!

Here are some other thoughts from the atlasGO team:

“As a team we do great things everyday here at atlasGO, but taking a day to help create positive difference in someone’s life in the community we live & work feels even more special.” – Ravali  

“It was great to get out of the office for a couple of hours and do something that will help the homeless of the city we live in.” – Olivier

 

“Being able to connect with our community with such an awesome cause like “simply the basics” while enjoying quality time with the team is what philanthropy is all about.” – Thomas

 

“It was wonderful to see how well Simply the Basics runs it’s operations and I’m thankful for the opportunity to help out. I was especially impressed on how they focused on one particular niche that was a problem in the community before they came along (sourcing and packing supplies for basic needs) and how they continually talk to their community for making sure the service they provide solves a problem.” – Seo