Backpacks with a Purpose

OVERVIEW: As a mom, I know how important it is to me to make sure my kids have everything that they need (not want, NEED) and I can not imagine how hard it must be for single, homeless moms struggling to survive and provide for their kids. The families supported by Colette's Children's Home are real live people, struggling from abuse, economical crises etc. and they are trying to get their feet back on the ground. 

Orange County Community Report (2006) stated that Orange County had the second highest rate of homelessness per capita in the entire United States next to Detroit, MI. As Orange County begins to emerge from the lingering recession, the 2012 report still states that per capita income is down, cost of living is high, and over all business climate measures are weak.

Single mothers are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. Many of these homeless single mothers lack the education and skills necessary to become self sufficient. The significance of this problem is that a continuous cycle of homelessness may continue through generations if it is not ended through education and skills to maintain self sufficiency in the community. Colette’s Children’s Home works with homeless women and children to provide emergency shelter, transitional housing and permanent housing. Kristi's Hope really like's that they also provide the life skills needed to secure gainful employment, healthy eating, parenting skills, relapse prevention and conflict resolution.

OBJECTIVE:  We designated a couple of weeks towards collecting as many back pack and school supply donations as possible with the goal of preparing the children living at this shelter to go back to school, ready to learn!


RESULT: We had several generous people drop off back packs and school supplies. We were also blessed with the support of Mama’s Place and Thirty One with Samira. Mama’s Place in Huntington Beach offered their store as a drop off location for donations and even offered the chance to win a gift certificate to the store for every donation that was dropped off! Congrats to the lucky winner!! Samira with Thirty One generously offered her commission to fill each insulated lunch box that was purchased/donated with school supplies.  

                           

On Thursday August 13^th, we delivered 40 backpacks filled with pencils, pens, crayons, glue sticks, paper, folders, erasers, calculators, rulers etc… and 15 lunch boxes to Colette’s Children’s Home.

Sweet Cases for Foster Care

OVERVIEW: In 2013 58,699 children entered foster care in California. More specifically 2,388 children entered foster care in Orange County. When children enter foster care, they usually get trash bags to move their few belongings in. Join us to help STOP this in our local community.

The foster care system can be a confusing and sometimes disheartening place, but through our efforts we strive to give foster children a brighter future, a sense of normalcy and belonging. 

OBJECTIVE: Kristi's Hope teamed up with Together We Rise  and created a fundraising page with hopes of raising money to put towards "Sweet Cases" which would then be handed out to children entering foster care. They will use these bags to take their belongings in rather than trash bags. 

RESULT: We raised money for SWEET CASES and collected over $500 in donations! Each sweet case costs $20.00 and includes a Duffel Bag, Hygiene Kit, Blanket, Coloring Books and Crayons. We also received donations of night lights and sidewalk chalk to include in each bag. We the gathered volunteers together and decorated each bag with fun pictures the children will love. 

The following week all the Sweet Cases will be delivered to a local foster care agency so they can be distributed to the children entering foster care. 

Military Care Packages in Honor of National Military Appreciation Month

Overview:  To call life difficult on base in Afghanistan or Iraq means little as we sit in Orange County wondering if we’ll make dinner tonight or get takeout. The landscape is nothing but dirt and rocks. Temperatures will soon be soaring above 120۫. And then there’s the war, a war in which suicide bombers or hidden explosives kill without warning. Many of us push aside the hardships our troops face – or forget about them entirely. Not Kristi’s Hope! Relying on only donations and the kindness of strangers and supporters we work hard to remind you about their sacrifices. We work hard to show our appreciation.

Objective: Congress designated May as National Military Appreciation Month in 1999 to ensure the nation was given the opportunity to publicly demonstrate their appreciation for the sacrifices and successes made by our service members - past and present. Kristi's Hope has teamed up with Operation Troop Support and invited volunteers to join us in putting together care packages for our deployed troops! 

Result: For a few weeks donations were dropped off and volunteers started RSVP’ing to help fill the care packages. On May 2^nd volunteers met at the park to fill 105 packages with donated items such as hygiene products, fun snacks,healthy snacks, entertainment items like puzzles, books, magazines etc.children created letters/cards drawings thanking the soldiers for their service/sacrifice and at least one was included in each package.

NOTE: A special thank you to Critical Cords for their generous donation of 100 bracelets for the troops. One was included in each bag. Also, a special thank you to Marlene Blaue who donated a bunch of items from her Marine Care package project in which she has shipped off well over 2,500 care packages.

On Wednesday May 6th the packages were boxed up and shipped out to Operation Give based out of Salt Lake City, UT. They will take the packages and send them to individual troops who are deployed across the world. 

Family Beach Clean Up Day

Overview: Beach cleanups are a fun and easy way to volunteer your time by helping to keep our beaches and ocean clean!

Marine debris is more than an unsightly inconvenience for beach-bound vacationers or pleasure boaters; it’s one of the world’s most pervasive marine population problems. Through the simple process of moving from ship to sea, sewer to surf,or hand to sand, any manufactured material becomes marine debris. Cigarette butts, fishing line, diapers, tampon applicators, six-pack rings, bottles and cans, syringes, tires-the litany of litter is as varies as the products available in the global market place, but it all shares a common origin. At a critical decision point, someone, somewhere, mishandled it– either thoughtlessly or deliberately.Many people mistakenly believe that oceangoing vessels are the major source of marine debris. On the contrary, 60 to 80% of the trash that pollutes the world’s waters originates on land. Literally tons of it foul our beaches, main and kill marine animals and threaten water quality.

Objective: In honor of Earth Day, Kristi’s Hope sent out an open invite and encouraged families to spend the day outside, together while cleaning up our local beaches. Bags, hand sanitizer and a gorgeous view were provided.

Result: Several families showed up with gloves and buckets/bags ready to make a difference, ready to clean up our beaches and make it a safe place for families and wild life to enjoy.

* The ocean is the largest life-sustaining resource on our planet.

* Plastic marine debris affects at least 267 species world wise, including 86% of all seal turtle species, 44% of all sea bird species and 43% of marine mammal species.

* Plastic marine debris takes hundreds of years to break down and may never fully biodegrade.

* Birds,fish, and mammals often mistake plastic and other debris for food, which can lead to fatal consequences.

* Many animals have difficulty digesting plastic, so the plastic remains in the animals stomach, which makes the animal feel full and can lead to the animal starving to death.

* Each man,woman and child in the U.S. produces 3-7lbs of trash each day.

* During a recent summer,  Orange County collected enough garbage from 6 miles of beach to fill 10 garbage trucks full of trash every week.

* For every item we recycle or reuse, that’s one less piece of trash that can become a part of the marine debris cycle threatening people and wildlife.

* Bolsa Chica & Huntington State Beach employ a garbage company that hand sorts all of our trash for recyclables, so that you do not have to worry about sorting the recyclables that you pick up.

Share the Love Pajama Drive

Overview:  Share the Love – Pajama Drive

Many children living in shelters, or even the profoundly poor living at home, have never owned a pair of pajamas, sleeping instead in underwear or their everyday clothes. The bedtime rituals many of us use to help our own children feel special and secure – like cozy clean pj’s and reading bedtime stories – are unknown to many impoverished children right here in our own community! 

Kristi’s Hope partnered with Family to Family and worked together on connecting with a local shelter for families in need.

Objective:  The pajama drive challenge was intended to bring awareness to the overwhelming need for  caring and compassionate people in our community. The families who will receive these donations are working hard to turn their lives around, get jobs, find a home, and most importantly to keep their family together. Something as simple as pajamas can put a smile on the children’s faces and bring hope to those parents who are struggling.

Result:  Kristi’s Hope hosted a pajama drive at Central Park in Huntington Beach and a wonderful supporter hosted one at Melinda Park in Mission Viejo. Volunteers showed up with pajama donations, books and time! The children created Valentine’s Day cards and the parents helped match a book and card with a pair of pajamas. Then they wrapped each set with beautiful ribbon.

We were so overwhelmed with the turn out! The amazing volunteers and so many of you who so generously donated contributed a total of 175 pajama sets. The pajamas were donated to two local shelters, Colette's Childrens Home in Huntington Beach and Thomas Family Shelter in Garden Grove. Both of these non-profit organizations work hard to help these families and guide them to a brighter future of self-sufficiency and success.

Thank you for your participation!

Check out our photo album for addtional pictures of this amazing event. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.779613295454192.1073741836.629137777168412&type=1

A Christmas Surprise

December 2014:
While most Americans were planning family gatherings, piling gifts under the decorated Christmas tree and preparing for big family feasts, a growing number of financially strained military families are lining up for turkeys and free groceries this holiday season, depending on charities to help put food on the table. We joined forces with a company in Huntington Beach who worked directly with Operation Ward 57. This organization matches people/companies with military families including active duty personnel, career or medically retired military or those honorably discharged from service who have been injured, wounded or acquired a disease during service.

We were matched with the Roberts Family. 

Throughout Mathew’s 12 years of service in the US Army, he has experienced many tragedies to others as well as his own. Matthew has served 3 deployments and is currently receiving disability for PTSD, hearing loss, back injuries and tetanus. The Roberts family has sacrificed so much for our country and in a small effort to show our gratitude we set out to provide them with a Very Merry Christmas!

People donated gifts from the families wish list. They were wrapped up and ready to ship. However, their biggest dream is to take a family vacation to Disneyland. Wanting to go that extra mile for this very deserving military family, we reached out to Kristi's Hope followers for donations. We were able to provide  Dinseyland tickets for the entire family, Disneyland gift certificates for a full day of fun inside the park, a 3 night hotel stay and gas cards as well as a cash donation for travel expenses.

It warmed our hearts to receive this special thank you from the Roberts family. 

“We have been so blessed to have such caring individuals such as yourself. I don’t think words could ever express how emotionally grateful we are. What an amazing Christmas your company has provided for our family. Not only did you go out of your way to provide gifts for our children but went above and beyond to provide us with a FAMILY VACATION. The children woke up to the best Christmas ever. The stockings were hung and the gifts placed under the tree; except, we placed the family gift in the middle of the tree for last. Once the children woke up they ran to the living room to see what was left for them. They sat around the tree with the biggest smiles and yelled “mommy, daddy, come see our presents. My heart dropped the moment I saw their little faces so bright and cheerful. We gave our children hugs and told them Merry Christmas. Then we explained these gifts are from our Adopt-a-Family and they are the reason we were able to give them a proper Christmas. Our son yelled out thank you Adopt-a-Family, followed by a soft thank you from our daughter. One by one they began to open their gifts, and as each one was unwrapped they yelled out OH MY GOSH, LOOK, YEAH, THANK YOU, ITS THE BEST GIFT EVER. Then came time for our family gift, I immediately broke down in tears, my husband and children didn’t know what was going on at all. I tried to hold it together as I read them the cover of our package. The children were confused at first, so I reread the cover and showed them the picture. The screams of excitement from the kids and the “WHAT, ARE YOU SERIOUS” from my husband, made this mommy-to-be even more emotional. The kids then asked if we were going today. We told them “no”, “but soon.” We gave them another hug and let them begin playing with their new toys. It was not until later in the evening that we had a chance to really look through our family package. Oh My Goodness, the picture you made of us at Disneyland is so amazing, I of course burst into tears again. How could this be possible for a military family like ours, to be so well taken care of like this. This has been such an amazing day provided by your generous company. You all have made our Christmas a very blessed, emotional and joyous day lasting well into the night. How could we have been so lucky.

You all have given our children what we could not, and for that, we thank each and every one of you from the bottom of our hearts. We cannot thank you all enough, you all are our angels sent from above.”

Operation Christmas Stocking

November 2014:

Overview: Our men and women serving our country outside our borders, in foreign lands, many putting their lives on the line every day, desire the same things you do during the holidays. We can’t bring them all home, but we can send a piece of Christmas to them and lovingly remind them that America has not forgotten them.

Objective: Kristi’s Hope partnered with the community to collect Christmas stockings and stocking stuffers to fill and ship off to deployed troops. We also had several classrooms and girl-scout troops volunteer their time to create pictures/letters/cards to include in the stockings.

Result: For about 3 weeks donations were dropped off and volunteers started RSVP’ing to help fill the stockings. On Sunday November 23rd local volunteers met at the park to fill 160stockings with donated items such as hygiene products, fun snacks, healthy snacks, entertainment items like puzzles, books, hacky sacks etc. and several letters/cards drawings thanking the soldiers for their service/sacrifice.

On Monday November 24th the stockings were boxed up and shipped out to Operation Give based out of Salt Lake City, UT. They will take the stockings and send them to individual troops across the world.

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