As a student volunteer at the Shalom Community Center, a resource center for homeless and impoverished citizens in Bloomington, I recently did a winter clothing drive as a class final project which aimed to acquire winter clothes for our clients.
As complicated and tedious as that sounds, it was actually super easy and yielded some pretty awesome ?results. All I did was reach out to some of my close friends and family, post a few things on social media and follow through with picking up from people who pledged donations.
I encourage everyone to give this a shot. There is a very real need in our community for warm winter clothing, and I’m sure you would be surprised to see how willing people are to give when you make the first move.
During my time working at the center, I frequently hear clients talk about their needs. Many come in requesting specific items, such as backpacks, sleeping bags, coats, hats, gloves, socks and warm pants and tops.
Unfortunately, these items are in short supply at the center, so many receive the response, “Sorry, we don’t have any of those right now.” What do they do then? What would you do? We all know how brutal and frustrating the Bloomington winter weather can be, so I ask all of you to lend a hand to those in need.
We can all do a little something: donate a pair of gloves, find an old coat to give or buy some socks for the center.
Maybe some of you could even get some friends together to donate or create your own clothing drive.
If you’d like to contact me to donate or ask questions about volunteering, my name is Aaron and my e-mail address is ?akneumey@indiana.edu.
Let’s all do our part to get clothing items out of the backs of our closets, bottoms of our drawers and boxes in the attic and into the hands of those that need them far more than we do.
Aaron K. Neumeyer
akneumey@indiana.edu
