Greetings fellow blog readers, this is Russo. Tis the season for giving, and it’s time again to coordinate another food drive for the community, and now medical supply, and kids shoes drive. This year we have new volunteers working with us, and want to thank them for taking the time to do so. Read some of the volunteer profiles in this blog. In the past I have personally worked with the LA Food Bank on a solo project, but did not really get good results with collecting canned goods. As time passed, I have realized that in order to get a better response from donators, I have to be able to work with volunteers to help spread the word, plus to go out to major super markets or stores and collaborate on this project. So this year, we are going on our small “campaign” to try and collaborate with the local community business. So wish us luck!!
Food Drive 2008, this year will be different, hopefully bigger and better! To start off, we have listed the objectives below on our plans to get the project going.
1) We need volunteers from the LA region to help coordinate with local super markets, shoe store for kids, or pharmacy store. Volunteers will collaborate on donation drive in front of business facilities. They will need to contact the business facility to ask for permission to set up a small booth or table to target passing customers.
2) Volunteer times can vary from 4-8 hours per week. Check this blog for specific times on when we plan to go out into the business facilities.
3) We are looking for canned foods, medical supplies, un-used kids shoes, or non-perishable goods.
4) Most of the canned foods will be forwarded to the LA food bank. Medical supplies will be forwarded to non-profit organizations abroad, kids shoes will be forward to a non-profit organization based in Houston Texas.
We are working with the medical connect community bloggers and friends to collaborate with medical supply donations for third world countries. The idea is to help collect supplies such as gauzes, tapes, bandages, anti-septic, anything that is non-perishable, or does not expire. These supplies will be handed to medical organizations abroad who are currently volunteering their time to aid the sick and unfortunate.
We want to thank you for taking the time to read this blog/message, if you or anyone you know is interested in working with us for the up-coming donation campaign, please feel free to forward this link to them ** http://2008fooddrive.blogspot.com/2008/11/food-drive-2008.html ** Lets make the world a little better by sharing and caring. Anything is possible, when we make an effort to.
Sincerely,
Russo Mutuc
www.spanishforsuccess.com “You’re Spanish Abroad Destination!”
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So talking with the volunteer, we have schedule our first campaign on Wednesday at 3pm. So far confirmed is myself (Russo), Jesse, Carmen, and Marta. I went out to a few 99 cents store today and talked to the manager, and one I have to call back tomorrow. In the afternoon, I plan to go to bigger super markets. Hopefully one will be o.k. to let us camp out in front of the store for a few hours.
Also, we have a potential new volunteer who is interested, so keep an eye out for her.
Yesterday I was out and about and came across clogs shoes, or are they considered sandals? But anyways, I came across the deals, and decided to purchase about 20 of them to donate. Luckily there was enough sizes for kids and teens. I packed my truck with them.
11/5/2008 was our first official food drive. In the last few days I have spent time driving, calling, and trying to speak with managers of super markets or stores, calling corporate offices and trying to find out if they would give us permission to do the drive. All of them where not really giving us the ok to work with them, except for one person who was on the marketing dept. from 99 cents, who was really cool about the idea, and told us technically they will not allow people to solicit in from off any business, but if it’s in the side walk, that is public property. This gave me some hope of actually making our first run at it possible. As the planning continued, I had received phone calls from others who wanted to participate in our project. I was more than happy to have them with us, but at the moment we already have 6 including myself doing the first location. So, planning for the next one should be no problem. So we arrived at our first location, we tried to setup our station in front of the store front, but in the sidewalk. Not within 3 minutes the managed comes storming out and telling us we have to leave or move. I tried as much as possible to explain to him our goals, but he was not hearing it. His most memorable remarks where” I have been working here for two years, and I always see people like you, if you guys don’t move, I will call the cops!” Looking back at the situation, I can’t understand why we had to move, considering we were standing in the sidewalk. But alas, we did not want to create a hostile environment. We just simply moved about 50 feet away from the building and set-up shop near the parking lot on the sideway, underneath the droppings of the pigeon gods. On top of us was whole line of them just waiting to drop some goods on us. Not within 15 minutes into it, sure enough, our first victim of the pigeon gods. Jesse got tagged just behind his head on his jacket. Luckily it missed his head completely. At that moment, we used that as our means of adding faith to our project. Paul had mentioned the droppings are a blessing from the skies. Wouldn’t you know it, the food started to pour in the basket, soon after. People just kept on putting more and more goods in our basket. Our next person to get tagged by the pigeon gods was Carmen, but at a different location. Ironically, she got tagged in the same location as Jesse. Throughout the two hours we spent we manage to give away some goods to passing homeless people. That there validated our efforts to make a small difference in people’s lives. Some, where really entertaining; there was two promoters trying to constantly give us club flyers for a rave, but at the same time we have been explaining to them what we do. He was quite surprised to see people giving food to us. Then there were a few who where a bit on the strange side, starring and mumbling words that you could not make out, but overall entertaining.
It was definitely a good day to go out and ask for donations. The response that we got from donators and strangers was amazing. Compared to the past, this alone tops the amount of goods I collected in three months. The team was really excited and generous for their time. They were eager to make another run for a different location and time. Some have already brainstormed about trying to do some co-op with their own work facilities.
Russo
Just recently received the containers from LA Food Bank, we are hoping to fill as many containers as possible before Thanksgiving.
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