Christmas presents for the residents of a group home
In Palm Beach County, Florida, volunteers will use grant funds to purchase Christmas presents for the residents of a group home; the eight girls who live there have been removed from their family home because of some type of abuse. From the grant application, “each year for the holidays we ask the girls for a wish list of items that might make their lives a little better; they usually select simple things such as teddy bears (so they have something to hug), new clothes and shoes (so they have something to wear that makes them feel special), to school supplies and games. We try our best to make their Christmas wishes come true!”
Students working to promote diversity
Creating Champions is a group of six high school students working to promote diversity, inclusion, and positivity amongst their peers. They will use grant monies to provide essential items to students in the Moms Who Care (MWC) program at their high school. MWC, founded in 2016, is run out of a room in the school that is stocked with clothes, food, toiletries and school supply items. All of these items are donated by the community and free to the students. MWC co-founder says this, “You don’t have to be on free/reduced lunch to come to the room. You just have to have a need. It may be that you ripped your jeans in shop class, or that a girl started her period and needs tampons and/or a new pair of pants, or there’s a pandemic and your parents don’t have jobs right now when they used to be able to provide, or you are just hungry and the door is open and you ask for a snack as you walk by!” Creating Champions and LLL will help ensure “the shelves are filled.”
HOPE Bags
Two classes of third-grade students in Milwaukee will be making HOPE bags for the Street Angels Homeless Outreach as their December service project. Each bag will include a blanket, set of warm clothing, food, bottled water and resource information and will be provided to county police, fire, EMTs, bus and transport drivers in the event they meet a homeless individual who needs immediate care. Says one parent of a third grader, “Building these HOPE bags for our friends who are homeless provides our third graders a tangible way to positively support someone in need. It teaches the kids compassion and empathy and shows them how even one small act of kindness can have such a big impact.”
Relief Packages
A small group of seven children in Kenya will pack Relief Packages for about 140 children in their village who are in great need. Each package will contain underwear, bathing and laundry soap, toilet paper, body oil, a toothbrush and toothpaste and face masks. From the application, “Because of COVID-19, there are children who have found themselves heading their families due to loss of one or both parents; some orphanages have closed down due to lack of funding and these children have been rendered homeless. During this time, social distancing has hampered physical contact and interaction that speaks volumes to children, but this won’t stop children from sharing the little they have with other less fortunate children.”
Plant a Hope Garden
A Key Club at a central Illinois high school will plant a Hope Garden at a local park. Hope gardens “help to destigmatize issues of mental health and provide awareness for suicide prevention. Hope gardens become a beautiful place for survivors and loved ones to post messages of hope and healing. We tragically lost a student at our school to suicide this year so this project is dear to our heart.”
Survival Backpacks for homeless children
A Chicago-area seven-year-old will be using her grant to purchase supplies for Survival Backpacks for homeless children. These packs will include non-perishable food, personal hygiene products, socks, an emergency blanket and gift cards for fast food restaurants and drug stores. The seven-year-old grantee hopes that when children open the packs and see what’s inside, they’ll know that a lot people, even people they’ve never met, care for them.
Face masks in children’s sizes
A high school student from Pekin, IL is using the funds she was granted to purchase face masks in children’s sizes. She volunteers at a local soup kitchen which prepares and distributes meals to people in need. “Right now, some children come in holding large masks over their face or tissues over their nose and mouth. Getting masks that are the right size would be a huge help to them. It is very important to me to keep the children safe and give them one less thing to worry about.”
Literacy at the Laundromat
Two college interns will be working with SCARCE in DuPage County, IL to fund Literacy at the Laundromat, an initiative to put both English and Spanish language books for kids in laundromats in the community. “Children are coming to the laundromat with their parents; they’re bored; there’s nothing to do but open and close the washers and dryers and run around.” So they’re fixing that problem by stocking the shelves with books that the children can read while they’re there and take with them when they go.
EXCITING NEWS!
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This is an amazing opportunity for us to increase the number of projects we can fund in 2021.
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