A "Day On" in Service

Faithful blog-readers, I need your help!

As you may know, AmeriCorps*VISTA members make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a "day on" not a "day off." That means that instead of taking the usual holiday to sit around and hang out, we spend our time as a day of service to our community (just like every other day of the year).

While Alex and I technically don't get Martin Luther King Jr. Day off from Shared Harvest, we are still getting in on the National Day of Service by participating in 3 different service projects throughout the day. We plan to volunteer at a local food pantry (project pending), a local animal shelter (project pending), and helping out the YWCA battered women's shelter. This third project was originally supposed to just be about packing up toiletry items and other assorted necessities for women and children living in the shelter. But then somewhere between finding the project online and signing up to help, we were roped in to actually collecting the items for the care packages.

How are we supposed to do that?

Well, we started at area businesses, mostly in Forest Park (because this shelter is in Cincinnati), asking for donations from the list. To put it simply, we haven't had much luck. After an entire afternoon of driving around and begging managers to help out (with official letterhead, I might add!), we only have $25 worth of office supplies from Office Depot. We're following up with some store managers who at least raised their eyebrows at us later this week, but in the meantime....

CAN YOU HELP?

Here is a list of things that the women at the shelter said they would really like to have. Check it out:

Office/School Supplies:

• Blue and black ink pens
• Dry erase markers
• Folders-2 pocket
• Rolls of postage stamps

Children's items:

• Baby bottles
• Baby monitors
• Baby play pens/Port-a-cribs
• Baby wipes
• Diapers (all sizes)

Women's clothing:

• Underwear sizes 5-10

Household items:

• Blankets (all sizes)
• Paper cups
• Pillow cases
• Pillows
• Sheet Sets (all sizes)
• Towels (all sizes)

Cleaning Supplies:

• Air freshner
• Carpet freshner
• Clorox disinfectant wipes
• Dish detergent
• Disinfectant spray
• Liquid laundry detergent
• Paper towels
• Pine Sol cleaner
• Trash bags, small and large
• Zip lock bags, sandwich & gallon size

Personal Hygiene items:

• Bar soap
• Body lotion
• Body wash/shower gel
• Cotton balls
• Female sanitary items
• Hair accessories
• Hair products (ethnic)
• Hand sanitizer
• Latex gloves

Miscellaneous items:

• Alarm clocks
• Batteries (all sizes)
• Fast food restaurant gift cards
• Gas gift cards
• Phone calling cards ($5)
• Movie passes
• Target/Walmart/Kroger gift cards

If you live in the Greater Cincinnati area and would like to get involved, please consider donating some of the above items. Just shoot me an email at kaitlyn@sharedharvest.org and I'll even come pick up your donation (as long as you live in the Greater Cincinnati area!) And if you live outside of the area and would like to help, still shoot me an email and we'll figure something out. Keep in mind that we can stretch your cash donation pretty far to purchase supplies, as well.

I hope you'll consider supporting survivors of domestic violence!

And start thinking about how you'll personally make MLK Jr. Day 2010 a "day on" in service!