no matter who we are, we all need basics.
we all need clothes, shampoo & food.
some of us even need diapers & lady products.
some of us go about our business buying these things without a second thought.
some of us even buy the best of the best...top brands because we "have" to.
some people can't provide diapers or formula for their babies.
some people can't even live in a safe environment.
thinking about these things doesn't nomally produce warm & fuzzy feelings...
but helping people with these needs can!!!
a few of us peeps have teamed up with cara to promote the basics charity challenge.
:D
we know quilters are some of the most kind hearted peeps on the planet.
so please stop over at cara's to see how YOU can help out.
{direct link here.}
fyi: giveaway prizes are being offered as an incentive to give...
but the real prize is knowing you helped out!!!
as an extra incentive for my ps i quilt readers:
if yall give in the basics charity challenge, come back & tell me.
one of yall lucky peeps will win a special surprise goodie package from me.
♥ rachel
39 comments:
Thanks again Rachel for promoting the challenge, and designing our image!!
What a wonderful thing to do and write! I run an agency that works with those with severe mental illness and the homeless. Our job is to help them recover and remain in safe housing...these donations will be so appreciated by the agencies that receive them! Thank you.
I and a group of women from my church will be getting together and donating supplies for our local women's shelter in March. We package these items up and our leader delivers them.
I am always open to helping if I can, I will go check out the link. thanks for sharing.
My family has been doing this for years, but I decided to step it up this week. I posted a note on my facebook page challenging my friends to do something locally and my family will make a trip to the food bank, not just donating what we don't like or want, but everyone is giving up something they love and they know that others will love it too.
I used to work for a women's shelter so we donate regularly but this week we made a special trip. Thanks for helping bring this issue to everyones attention.
Thanks for promoting this! As a result I have done a food drive of PB and Tuna for the local homeless shelter. =)
Hi Rachel,
I just left a comment with Cara on our donation to the CAN council of Saginaw Michigan. This organization helps abused and neglected children. We donated an American flag for the CAN council's auction on Feb.24,2011.
If you google CAN council of Saginaw Michigan you can view the items.
seems too good to be true to be eligible to win prizes for the charity giving we do every month at our church! we gave this past week for a prison ministry and womens shelter here in town thru our church
After reading yours and Cara's post, I've started a supply drive for an area domestic violence shelter. I've facebooked it and called area organizations to help too! Every little bit helps!!!!
Thanks for the reminder :)
Because of Cara, I donated a pile of lady products to my YWCA. And I bought the top brands.
Cara is a great catalyst for these good deeds, and I appreciate your publicizing it! I posted last week on her site about donating to a local charity.
I recently took 14 handmade quilts to a homeless shelter for children to have. This program is called Family Promise, and is a great place for homeless families to live while they get help. Now I need to make another supply, as they have just about exhausted the quilts. I also make quilts for our CASAs to give to the children they are assigned to after being taken from parents because of neglect. I have also made around 75 of these quilts, and it gives me great pleasure to see their faces light up when presented a handmade quilt "just for them"..to keep...
I'm in the middle of making a kids quilt for Quilts for Kids organization. It's my 5th quilt so far! Thanks for posting this! Makes us think on how really blessed we are.
Every January I give a monatary donation to a local women's shelter in my mother's name. She died 3 years ago in January and this is done as a remembrance to her.
So funny, the timing of this... just last Sunday I announced to our church that we would be doing a Basics Drive for a crisis pregnancy center in the community. The founders of the center had spoken to our church before, and being 8+ months pregnant myself, it's something that struck me hard.
I took an armful of gift bags recycled from my own baby shower to pass out to those who wanted them... the challenge is to fill them with diapers, wipes and other basic hygiene items and return them to the church so that we can deliver them to the center just before Easter. We ran out and had people promise to fill their own bags! We will be doing the same thing, Angel-tree style, at Christmas.
I read recently that as many as 1 in 3 mothers in the US (not just single moms or teenage moms) will at some point have to choose between buying diapers or paying utility bills. Buying blankets and onesies is fun, but filling that long-term basic need is something that is often neglected.
Thanks Rachel for sending me to Cara's blog and challenge in the first place. It really made me think about how lucky I am. That day I went out and bought some items and took them to a group that has bought up a couple of older motels in our city and use them for shelters. Today I had an extra day off work and decided to hit Goodwill. I found a bunch of towels, all new or new looking, and went by to make another donation. I even talked to them about volunteering. Feels good to do something like that with my day. Thanks again.
Thanks for the reminder, Rachel. I've been focused on myself far too much lately, and your post was timely. I'm contacting the state's "women's refuge organisation" today to offer any basics they'll accept.
There is a bag hanging above my clothes dryer, every batch of clothes I wash of the girls, I will toss the too-small and gently used pieces into this bag, then I bag them up and drop them on the doorstep of girlfriends who have just had a baby. There is no doubt that when your a new Mom - free-handmedown playclothes are always a blessing!
Everyday I realize how bless I am. My husband and I have good jobs, healthly children and grandchildren. The 2 quilds. I belong does a basic necessities for the families in the women shelter. Also, some of us make quilts for Downy for kids.
I made a donation today to the NCADV. As a survivor of abuse, it's my hope that the broken spirit and soul of a man, woman, or child will know that even in the darkest of times that there are still good, caring people in this world.
Thank you for bringing forward and centre the needs of those in our own back yard. I have been making and gifting for years. I make triangle bags, fill with products for women: deoderant, hand cream, shampoo/conditioner, lip balm, antibiotic hand gel, bodywash, creams, toothpaste/brush and gift to the womens shelter and to some hospitals in my area for pregnant women who all of a sudden find themselves being admited with nothing but the clothes on their back. I do try to purchase good used sewing machines (a couple of times a year, I post on the school board's swap shop that i am looking for these), fix them and donate them to many immigrants that sew for their families. i sew little outfits for children that end up at the women's shelter. I donate blankets, quilts, towels to the men's mission, donate to the adult learning center where the greater population is on welfare, teen pregnacy class..i can go on and on but it is wonderful to hear of so many more that are giving from their hearts!
2 charity groups i belong to are:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/caring4canadians/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/outfitsfororphans/
I do try to donate to orphanes in Africa, Haiti and Jamaica.
keep the giving going..when you think you are doing something wonderful for someone else, you will one day realize how much you have gotten from your positive actions. it will almost feel like you are getting more than you are gifting..
Jane Doe
London, Ontario, Canada
eyesofyellow@yahoo.com
Thanks for posting this link! I checked it out and bought receiving blankets for our local women's shelter and posted the on my blog. Thanks for bringing the quilting community together for such a great cause!
We gave Peanut Butter to our local Food Bank in San Antonio - because they always need peanut butter!
I was able to donate new baby items to an organization that helps at-risk pregnant moms have the basics for their newborns. Nothing cuter than those itty bitty diapers and outfits!! Glad you gave me a little nudge to do it!
I donated last Friday and will be taking another load next week.
i work on this "quilt for a cause" type thing once a month
I live in rural Australia where there were some floods just recently (not Queensland). In fact I was unable to get to work for three days (was a hopeless mess at the end of it all my husband was away and had to ask the neibours if we were evacuated to take me too) So I have given a donation to our local flood relief. I was so fortunate that I was just unable to go to work. Others were less fortunate than me some lost everything they owned.
This challenge really touched my heart. I went yesterday and bought items from a local charity's Wish List and donated them. I think I will start volunteering for them too. Thanks so much for posting this :)
Thank you so much for your post directing us to Cara's site! For years I had been an active volunteer on a crisis hotline for our local domestic violence shelter; I have since stopped working the hotline but continue to donate money yearly. This post brought back so many memories for me and reminded me of how great it felt to be INVOLVED with giving. I have called the shelter and gotten a "wish list" from them and will do my best to provide whatever basics I can. Thanks again for the nudge toward Cara. Just imagine how many donations are being made, how many burdens are being eased becasue of a couple of blog posts!
Thanks for promoting Cara's challenge. My husband and I volunteer at the local homeless shelter but this prompted me to go out and purchase several twin sheets, an item that the shelter needs. It is amazing what a simple reminded can do!
Rachel, thanks for promoting the challenge. As chairperson of my quilt guild's Senior outreach program I make dozens of lap and wheelchair quilts, bibs, and pillowcases for needy seniors. I also organize workshops to make even more. It is just what we do on an ongoing basis. We know we are blessed and enjoy serving others.
Our local women's shelter has requested those little travel-size bottles of shampoo, etc., for their women. That way they have their own, personal products. Our little friendship group is providing those -- Walmart has a great travel section with lots of small deodorants, toothpaste, shampoo, etc.
Isn't it the best feeling to give and know you put a smile on someones face? I make dreamquilts for children who are really sick or having a very hard time. The thought that the quilt can give them some comfort is great. Then once a month I go to the grocerystore were the local shelter has its ´add a product to your list´ drive. They do this once a month and ask costumers to add one or more products to their shoppinglist and donate it to them. Its a small effort to buy something they are in need of or go for the 2+1 sale items and donate the extra´s.
What a sweet thing to offer :) We regularly donate to the women's shelter locally, and began a new tradition with the Ronald McDonald house this past Christmas. We take clothing, toys, toiletries, basics, etc, including non-perishable food items. When I was working as a volunteer with the police department i saw the needs at the shelter first hand. We added RMH to our list because of our experiences with our son when he was born at 30 weeks and spent several weeks in the NICU. Had we not lived here RMH would have been our home, and they allowed us to bring the kids to meet some of the families. I think it had a real impact on our children to give something to these families who were dealing with so much. The kids all asked to come back soon, so we are making it a regular thing. :) It's amazing how something so small can mean the world to someone with nothing else.
Thanks for helping to promote this great challenge! The outpouring of support resulting from Cara's post has been really inspiring to me. I did participate and just dropped off a number of items at a local women's shelter today.
Thanks so much for bringing Cara's blog to my attention. I posted on her site that I've pledged to make comforters for people new to this country because they had to flee from violence in their home countries. Also, I am gathering up all the cute little toiletries my sweetheart brings home from his business trips and I'll take them to our nearby shelter.
Thanks for getting so many of us thinking beyond the walls of our homes.
wordygirl at earthlink dot net
Thank you for posting about this! It is just the kick in the pants I need to clean out my stock of basics and start fresh! I have lots of shampoo, conditioner, soap, feminine hygiene items, and toothpaste that I've gotten for free or almost free by matching coupons with sales. It's all going and I'll start over!
HI ! I donated money to a ladie's and kid day center here close to where I live ; and I also donated blankets and burp rags that I made and onesies to a group that was going on a missions trip ; and I donate to the local food pantry when they have the personal care products drive ; thanks for this extra chance to win . If I win it will be a bonus , but that is not why I do it !
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