Charity ideas

[Gia Dobson]

Our shop is doing a coat drive to benefit our local homeless shelter with the help of this organization... One Warm Coat

http://www.OneWarmCoat.org

We're simply asking people to dig through their closets for coats they don't wear anymore and to donate them for distribution at our local homeless shelter. We are offering a raffle ticket for each coat donated to enter a drawing for a tattoo gift certificate.

Here's the facebook event:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=153960957980443

Just thought I'd mention this in the off chance that someone might be inspired to do something similar. A friend of mine did a coat drive last year and that's how I found out about One Warm Coat. Wondering if anyone else here has done stuff like this in the past or plans to do anything similar for the holidays. We just feel so blessed to have what we have and do what we do... and sometimes all it takes is someone else mentioning a simple idea to inspire action in others.

[Gia Dobson]

So, we collected 214 coats this week. Our goal was 100, so doubling that was way super awesome. The shelter was very very grateful to receive them and said that no one had donated to them yet this season. Not bad for a town with a population of around 15,000.

Here's a couple photos of us counting and sorting:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=180224041993494&set=a.180223958660169.49063.148834055132493#!/album.php?aid=49063&id=148834055132493

This was SO SIMPLE to do and so rewarding.

[tammy]

Gia, i have been following your progress and what you have collected is AMAZING!

i just donated a vacation to be auctioned to the Special Olympics. I wish I had more to give but hopefully it will bring in $1500-2000 at auction.

Jack and I also took a bunch of food to the food bank and he was really pround to take out each can and box or food and put it on the display.

[chuck chapin]

I've always thought it would be cool to host a blood drive.