NESP Forum

Tricia, why am I not surprised? Hope you had a
great vacation!!

Love the design idea !  and can't wait to see what you come up with Tricia.

Both charities sound great but the Breakwater Drop-In Program gets my vote for the Christmas project primarily because of their day program.  
Faced with the serious cut in federal funding many shelters have had no choice but to go to limited hours forcing people to fend for themselves between 8am and 8pm - this organization has stepped up and offered a solution.  Kudos to them! ! !

Here's the email I received from the shelter. We're playing phone tag
but I should have more details by end of the week as to what we can
do to help.

In my email to her I mentioned a few ideas...decorating the shelter
for the holidays and sponsoring a dinner...doing some craft projects
with them...having members "adopt" a child or teaming up and
adopting families to help with food/gifts,etc. I'm going to try to find out
asap so people can be on the lookout for deals on food,gifts,etc. and
maybe get stores/friends,etc. to help donate as well.

We would love to participate as we get closer to the holiday season!!!

On average our Shelter has approximately 8 kids per night. These youth are normally teenagers. Of course these kids might not be there around the holidays, so it would be better to wait until closer to the holidays to determine what kids we have there at the time.

In addition, we do have a Supervised Visitation Program. These are
coordinated visits between children and their families, some of whom
are normally extremely poor. These youth are normally pre-school age.

If it is relevant, we could provide a tax-exempt receipt of donations
for tax purposes.

Also, how would all of this be coordinated (delivery, etc.)
Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.

Thanks again for thinking of our shelter!

This all sounds wonderful to me and gets my vote! Great job!

This is a great project ladies! Bluzkat will help out! We can help you with advertisment and purchasing some ornaments.

Let me know what you need

If we decide to buy gifts for one or more kids.. at my office we do "operation santa claus" and raise money for it by a silent auction. We collect items, buy tickets, put them in a cup in front of the item(s) we would like to win and then a ticket is drawn for each item. It's always lots of fun.

If we have enough "crafty" members who want to bring things to auction, and/or unique Taylor memorabilia, that could be a fun holiday party event.

Thanks for the offer of help Bluz

Excellent idea Margaux. I'm sure we could come up with some fun
items to auction

Oooooh...silent auction. Like those! I just won a Home Interior Uncle Sam at one on Saturday. 3 tickets for a buck.

Just a quick update...I talked to the shelter today and they are
really psyched about our group,etc. We will probably have to do the kids' thing at night as they're open 8pm to 8am. I'm trying for Nov. 30th to tie in with our original plan. Will that work for people? What we're thinking is a very basic get together. We'd show up with decorations, some activities, and snacks. The kids will be 12-18. They'll appreciate anything we come up with. Maybe decorating
general ornament type things, dancing, decorate cookies, that type
stuff...

She will get a list of some kids that people can "adopt" to just send
a small gift to,etc. as well closer to the actual holidays.

If you're interested in participating in the Adopt A Kid let me know,
and if you can attend the party for the kids let me know if that date
works...This will be in Rockland Maine...

That could possibly work for me if the weather cooperates.  And I could be in Ellsworth on Saturday by 11 - in time for the Holiday Parade!

How are the ornaments coming along? Any help needed in that department?