Generosity for at-risk and homeless teens

The holiday season always seems to bring out the generous spirits in our community and this year is no different.  In just the past two days, we've experienced the following here at HOME:
-  A longtime friend of HOME dropped off a check and a smoked turkey.
-  A doctor's office brought by cash totalling $100 and assorted items from our Wish List
-  A generous lady brought by 15 NEW BACKPACKS plus games and clothing
- Two festively dressed employees of Chemeketa's Center for Business & Industry (our neighbor) walked two FULL carts carrying LOTS of backpacks, games, toiletries and other items down the street to HOME.
- A couple brought in a used guitar, along with a check.  The youth here LOVE to sit around and listen to/strum guitars.  The two we have currently only have 4 strings each.  (They should have 6).
- St. Marks Lutheran Church has 10 gift cards for $25 for us to distribute.
- A student at Central High School in Independence held a teen clothing drive for HOME as a senior project.  Today he brought several boxes and bags worth of shoes and clothes, separated by gender.
- Employees from SAIF brought by a great assortment of backpacks and other items from our Wish List.
-  The Youth Junk 2 Fashion Funk Team from Blanchette Catholic School sent me their very creative flyer for the fashion show fund-raiser they're putting on for HOME in January.  Here's the link:

http://youthjunkfashionfunk.webs.com/.  What a creative and enthusiastic group!

With all this largesse coming in, it would be pretty overwhelming for our small staff to deal with.  HOWEVER, we've been blessed AGAIN with a volunteer who's a perfect match for the monumental task of organizing it all.  I first met Jennifer Hofman several years ago when she worked on the Backpack Project for HOME at Willamette University.

Jen is one of those people who looks at clutter and, instead of fainting, is able to see the order in things.  In fact, she now has an online business helping others, especially people with home businesses, to get -and stay - on top of that chaos.  She's taking a brief break from her business during the holidays and what does she do with her valuable free time?  Volunteers here at HOME, organizing our holiday gift room.  And doing an awesome job, too.

(Here's Jen's website: Inspiredhomeoffice.com)

Speaking of which, I've got to start tackling the piles in my office and beginning sending out Thank You notes to all these wonderful people who are making the holidays so special for the teens who come to HOME.                 

November Events

Obviously my best intentions on writing to this blog on a regular basis were just that...intentions.  As with most non-profits, the holiday season is always a little bit crazy and it all starts with Thanksgiving.

Actually, it started before Thanksgiving.  The Springs at Sunnyview Retirement and Independent Living Center planned and cooked an awesome fried chicken dinner with all the fixings here at HOME.  They also brought over a wonderful assortment of items and gift certificates that are very useful here.  Here is the Chef and her assistants:

Then our "Crew", a group of HOME youth who meet weekly and plan community service projects, spent an hour - or two - raking up ALL the leaves in front of our house and our neighbors.  About 10 bags worth plus a big yard debris bin. Here are the bags.

And here is the Crew raking.

Our neighbor, Lady Web Pro, who also helps with our website maintenance and does an awesome job by the way, appreciated having her sidewalk all swept off, and brought over several boxes of the always popular fried chicken and salads.  Lucky us to have fried chicken twice in one month!!  It's way too labor intensive for us to prepare here so we very rarely serve it.

We were closed for Thanksgiving Day and Friday, but planned our big Thanksgiving dinner here for Wednesday.  We were very fortunate to have our neighbors at First Christian Church prepare our meal here for about 35-40 teens plus staff and volunteers.  Here's a picture of the tireless church folks cooking the meal

We also had members of the Willamette Soccer Team do some cleaning for us on a Saturday.  Since we hire one of our youth to do our cooking and cleaning, we rarely get any heavy duty deep cleaning done.  So the guys really tackled the floors and dust for us.  And here's a picure of them on our front steps:

The Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend usually marks the beginning of our holiday season at the Capitol Forum's Charity event.  HOME and the Women's Crisis Service have been lucky recipients of this fund-raiser for about 10 years now.  Quite often businesses and clubs like to rotate their giving and it seems rare to be beneficiaries like this for so long.  Even during this tough economy, the event raised about $1,000 for each of us and we are VERY APPRECIATIVE.

Three Cheers for all of the above for your help and support!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH