Donation Day

Well friends, I'm happy to say that we donated to our 187th department today- the West Glocester Fire District which is located in the northwest part of Rhode Island. The Lt. at the department called last week and asked if we could help with donating stuffed animals- they had recently given out their very last one to a child. Of course, I was happy to help and I brought two boxes to them this afternoon. I hadn't been to that part of Rhode Island before- it is pretty and rural. There is something special about doing to fire departments- I've noticed that a lot of them have a family feeling, particularly the smaller departments. I felt that way when I walked in there today. Here is a photo from the donation.

Most of the stuffed animals were from the recent Build-a-Bear donation. I emailed the lady who had organized the Build-a-Bear donation the photo. She wrote back quickly saying that she was happy to see the bears in action. I have to pick up our next case of teddy bears from our storage space- I need some more to include in our donation Thursday to Boston PD.

So what else is new? Well, I need to get cracking on grants- I feel like I'm falling behind on finding new grants to apply for and I need to reapply for at least one more grant soon. There are a couple of other grants that I will apply for this year, but it is too early now to apply. Grants are an important source of funding for us and I need to keep it up. I read an article this afternoon about how high unemployment levels still are and it was really unnerving.  It is so important that we stay on solid financial footing- even though the economy is getting better, it still isn't that great and that has a definite impact on our fundraising. I also read another article a few weeks ago about how much time congressmen/women are required to spend fundraising by their national committee- an average of 4 hours a day. That is close to the amount of time that I have to spend on it. It cuts into program work, but it absolutely has to be done. Fundraising is the most time consuming thing, but I've learned to embrace it!

Well friends, that's the latest for tonight. I'm off to eat some more of the delicious cantaloupe that's in the fridge. I love summer fruit! Until tomorrow friends..