This past Sat hubby and I again joined in with
#hashtaglunchbagcolumbus. A group of folks have done a super job organizing this event and getting the word out. People gather together, make lunches, and deliver them to various homeless shelters and food banks. The movement is not specific to my city, Columbus...it's spread throughout the US. The organizers use an on-line system of registering and encourage people to pay ahead. Everyone donates $10.00. The money is used to purchase bread, meat, cheese mustard, fruit, pretzels, zip lock bags, and brown lunch bags. I don't believe the lunches are necessarily the same with each event or each city. We had about double the number of volunteers this time.
The above picture is Steve Holland (high school friend, in fact we graduated together) on the left, myself on the right with hubby beside me. This was the 3rd work station we helped with. This is the end process where everything is put into the brown lunch bag, bag is rolled and placed in grocery bags for delivery. The first time we helped, there were about 50 volunteers and we made about 500 lunches in about 2 hours. More time is involved obviously with the shopping, organizing, clean up and delivery.
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Silly picture of me, but hubby and Lee look great, so decided to post anyway. Lee is a co-worker of my husbands. The first work station the 3 of us bagged cookies. When we completed that, we set up an additional work station of making sandwiches...see the bologna in hubby's hands.
Sandwiches...spread out lots of bread, another person adds meat, another adds cheese, another squirts mustard, another adds 2nd piece of bread, another bags and zips ziplocks...very much an assembly line. This past Sat 115 volunteers were on hand and 1400 lunches were made. What a huge growth. People assisted with getting the world out so well it was quite crowded. There were several sandwich making stations, one for cookies, one for pretzels (large containers need to broken down and appropriate number of pretzels zipped in bags), one to pull apart bananas , one to decorate the bags (some kids joined in and made cute little pictures on the outside of the bags, adults wrote encouraging messages on other bags). Something for everyone to do. The next event organized by this group will be sometime in May. If you're local https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hashtaglunchbagcol-february-27-2016-tickets-20863022863
keep checking in for details.
Additionally, the next actual Columbus event is:
Use this Link to locate an event near you. Just add your zip code and get involved. If there's not an organized event near you, consider starting one.
2016 DONATIONS:
Hats: 318
Scarves: 158
Mittens/Gloves/Wrist Warmers: 97
Slippers: 101
Rain Poncho's: 105
Cotton Washcloths: 414
Afghans: 18
Socks: 189
Cowls/Hoody Combo's, headbands: 9
Shawls and shrugs, ponchos, sweaters & vests etc 0
Misc: items like personal care, headbands etc and things don't fit into above categories aren't counted
Please note the category of shawl, shrugs, ponchos etc has reached our little goal, same as last year of 1.........but please please please.........don't let that stop you from making more of these items.
All donations regardless of size and number are valued. All donations are appreciated. The Power of One is awesome, and when we work together The Power of One becomes The Power of Many.
That is an interesting idea! I had never heard of HashtagLunchbag. Love that you, your husband and friends could get together and pack lunches. I love the idea that the children helped to decorate the bags. It is wonderful that so many people turned out to help.
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