Mission Accomplished!!

Our Impact Factory members all deserve a halo, or at least a great big cupcake!

The project they planned for Global Youth Service Day on April 23rd was a big success!  The project came together in many steps:

First, they decided they wanted to focus on helping homeless kids and teens.  They held their own fundraisers and all together raised more than $600!

As a team, they determined that they wanted to put together care packages that would not only meet kids needs, but also show them love and encouragement.  We wanted blankets or sleeping bags, stuffed animals, age appropriate books, snacks and toiletries to go into these packages, and they said they wanted to do 150 of them.  Each of the kids held their own drive of sorts to collect all this stuff, and they did it! From school drives, to asking friends and neighbors, to asking family dentists and hair salons, the kids came up with more than we could fit into the packages!

We found an organization that we could partner with for the day - the Family Tree and their House of Hope shelter, but we ran into a small glitch.  They have a very different list of items for care packages, so all we'd be able to put in from what we collected would be the toiletries.  Not to be daunted, we decided to give the books to The Gathering Place for their birthday bags, the blankets and sleeping bags to Urban Peak, and the stuffed animals to West Metro Fire to give to kids in traumatic situations.  House of Hope only needed 40 care packages, so with the money the kids raised, we were able to buy the items from from their wish list to put into the care packages.

The kids wrote notes to stick into the care packages - wrapped up in towels and tied with pretty ribbon.  They also wrote notes for our last part of the project - sack lunches! These turned out to be the best sack lunches I've ever seen, stuffed full of all sorts of goodies, fruits and veggies, and sandwhiches too!  We bought the lunch items with the money the kids raised too.

The day of the project, we made the lunches, the care packages, and had time left over to help with a little organization in their toy and clothes donation closets. 

Every one of our Impact Factory members worked hard and had a lot of positive attitude to contribute to the day! One of our Committee member's husbands took great pictures of our day in motion, and when I have the final cuts I'll post those for you.

Our contact at Family Tree said that the clients loved the lunches and care packages, that we really made their day. 

 I can't wait to see our project next year when we apply all we learned this year! Here's to an excellet Impact Factory project - impact accomplished!