Thursday, April 21, 2016

Latest and Greatest

Greetings friends! So what's new? Well, things are moving along well. This week, I've been working particularly hard on getting auction items for both of our big events. I was a little behind on outreach, but have caught up now. We are doing well with getting items. We've been getting some new items including a vineyard which is donating a wine tasting and tour. It's funny, I was looking at my donation database and there is one company that used to say in their guidelines that a charity could only apply for an item donation every 5 years. We received the donation in 2012 and I hadn't applied since. On a lark, I decided to go on the site and see if their policy might have changed. It had changed! So, I went ahead and applied for an item. I also decided to reach out to a local company that had sponsored the Anniversary event a couple of years ago, but hadn't responded to emails since then. I reached out about sponsorship or auction item donation and the person wrote back almost immediately that they would donate a nice item for the auction. It's really important to keep going back to potential donors. You never know what's changed. With the economy improving, some places can now donate again. Also,  just like sometimes helpful people leave, then sometimes unhelpful people leave too and are replaced with people that want to help your efforts. It can get tiring to keep following up, but it is really critical.

Here is a photo from our donation a couple of weeks ago to Fitchburg PD. We've been donated to Fitchburg for almost 10 years!
Tonight, I was the guest speaker at the Franklin Rotary Club. The Club has been a loyal supporter of our work. They've made an annual donation for over the past 6 years and always invite me to come back and update them. It is a small group and very friendly. I really enjoyed visiting them tonight and letting them know what we were up to. Before I spoke, they were talking about upcoming projects that they are doing. One of them is organizing a soap drive for the Franklin Food Pantry. The President was saying that the Food Pantry was telling them that there is a great need for non-food items. Food stamps only cover actual food, so people are left to struggle to pay for everything else- those are essential items too. Can you imagine not being able to buy soap, toilet paper, toothpaste or if you're a woman- pads/tampons. It must be dreadful. I would like to be able to expand in a way that provide essential items like that for families in need. Maybe I can get grants that would help with that. I'm going to figure out how to turn it into a program.

On that note, I am off to eat- not sure exactly what my snack will be- most likely an orange and a banana. I've been buying Cara oranges at Market Basket. They are super sweet and juicy- highly recommend. Until next time friends..

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