verbatim: Drives Day

I'm still walking on air from a charitable event I helped chair yesterday at the temple. In the past, we've had a winter outerwear drive for the homeless, then a toy drive for needy kids around Christmas-time, and finally a book drive in the spring for schools and libraries in underfunded areas. This year we decided to consolidate them all into one massive Drives Day, and to incorporate a family learning component into the event. It was all part of our Tikkun Olam ("repair the world") initiative.

All month we've been soliciting donations of new toys and gently used books and coats from the congregation, and the goods have been pouring in. Yesterday nearly 200 people (about 65 families) came together for an afternoon of working together for the greater community. First we divided the kids into age groups for a brief learning program and craft project. (For instance, the 8-year-olds learned about what it might be like to not be able to read important signs, then they made bookmarks to be donated with the books.)

Then we divided the families up to begin sorting through all the donations. We had hundreds of coats and toys and thousands of books. After sorting, everything was packed into boxes and bags for delivery by still more volunteers to our recipient organizations:

Children's coats went to Cradles to Crayons, women's coats went to the Women’s Lunch Place, and men's coats went to the St. Francis House.

The smallest toys were given to Project Smile to be distributed by police officers to children in traumatic situations; the large toys were divided between the Franciscan Hospital for Children and the Grow Clinic for Children.

The children's books went to the Potter Road School (our temple has a literacy partnership with them, where volunteers from our congregation help students learn to read). All other books were divided between the Morin Foundation, which provides books to schools and shelters, and More Than Words, a used bookstore that employs youth who are in the foster care system, are homeless, or have mental health or substance abuse issues.

It was truly heart-warming to watch kids of all ages and their parents working together to make our world a brighter place. For me, it was most definitely a day of feeling grateful, for so many reasons.