Project Dignity for All Update (Sunday, April 28, 2019)
This has been an extremely busy weekend for Beau and me!
On Friday afternoon Beau picked me up from work and we drove to Gatineau to pick up our new family member.
We adopted a handsome, almost two-year-old Tabby cat named Buddy. We spent the evening getting him settled in, and bonding with him overhead scratches.
We reserved Saturday for all of our errands, grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning the house, etc.. I am sure everyone knows exactly what that kind of busy is like! We had decided that Sunday would be our Project Dignity day.
This week we have been fortunate enough to have received donations totaling 9 full garbage bags of clothing and footwear! We want to say a huge thank you to Bettina + Scott, Telisha + Matt, Philippe, and his mother, as well as a special shout out to Erroll + Helen, who donated 4 full bags of wonderful items.
Thank you all for your generosity!
Going through every bag, sorting by sizes, gender and season can be quite a labour intensive! Once everything was sorted out, we started to organize and fill Project Dignity bags. I wrote down gender and sizes discreetly on the upper inside corner of each bag. We always try to make complete outfits (pair of pants, few shirts ect.), when we can. If we are lucky enough to have boxers and socks available, we add that as well. Once we have run out of pants, we usually fill each bag with 3 different shirts of the same size.
We did add toothpaste and toothbrushes to a few of the bags, however, we have now run out of most toiletries! Any and all donations of these kinds of items are much appreciated!
We had so many donated items this week, that we were able to fill 31 bags for men and 33 bags for women, for a grand total of 64 bags! we also filled two purses with toiletries and outfits, and have 5 belts, 3 suspenders, 7 pairs of shoes and 10 spring jackets to give away.
Doing all of this is very time-consuming. We started around 9:00 AM and before we knew it it was time to start dinner! The whole day had just flown by! Looking at all of the filled bags at the end of the day today, already leaves us with a big feeling of anticipation for next weekend, when we will be heading out for our Outreach # 6. We will keep you posted.
PS: There is always a great need for gently used shoes of all sizes, especially runners! As an aside, during our last outreach, a gentleman told me that he can never find any shoes in his size (size 12 to 13)!! His current shoes are in rough shape!
We again want to thank everyone for any and all donations. They are so very much appreciated! Just let us know what address you want us to pick up from, the afternoon before the next pick up day.
Without all of you, we would not be able to do what we do!