Posts Tagged ‘donation’

The Alpha Women’s Center is holding a “Dipes, Wipes, and Formula Drive” from now until Easter and Thompson Remodeling is proud to be an official drop-off point.

Bring baby supplies to the Thompson Remodeling office located at 4820 Cascade Road SE in Grand Rapids to make a donation.

While all baby supplies are greatly appreciated, diapers are the primary need.  Alpha Women’s Center has 2,500 single parent clients who live below the poverty line and the babies represented will use 35,000+ diapers this year alone.  Your help is needed!

For more information on the drive or to learn more about Alpha Women’s Center, visit www.alphawc.org.

Thompson Remodeling is an official drop-off center for the Alpha Women’s Center’s coat drive for children. Stop by now through December 16 and donate a coat to help keep Alpha’a 3,000 clients warm this winter.

Alpha Women’s Center is a local pregnancy care center that helps young parents and their children, providing free parenting courses, mentoring, GED prep classes, pregnancy testing, and material assistance. With a 50% increase in clients just in the last year, they are not able to keep enough coats on the shelves for children who need them. Consider how you can help and visit Thompson Remodeling to drop off your donation.

Thompson Remodeling is located at 4820 Cascade Rd. SE, Grand Rapids, MI.

For more information on the coat drive or Alpha Women’s Center, visit www.alphawc.org.

I am not a garage sale guy.  Not surprising…not too many guys ARE in the first place.  But it did walk through our basement today and recognize our recurring problem; clutter.  We’re due for our annual basement clean out and donation event.  I did my section of our closet about a month ago.  Kristin did her [larger] section of our closet two weeks ago.  It feels so good to do this and it feels even better when we take on the basement.

Thompson Tips to Donating:

1. Make the call 1st – schedule the pick up from Goodwill even before you’ve cleaned the basement.  This may just put the pressure on that you need.
2. Have the donation pile be in the garage so it prevents one of your cars from parking until the donation gets picked up [or dropped off].
3. Set a limit on the duration you will spend as a family cleaning the basement.  If you know that you’re only going to spend 2 hrs on the activity everyone can gear up for it and get the job done.
4. Do something fun afterwards – if the intrinsic value of Donating household stuff was a strong enough incentive we’d all have orderly basements.

Some of you reading the blog may be garage sale people…go ahead and do it!  Apply the same principles above to a garage sale.  Other resources are e-bay (hire your kid to manage the posts, shipping, and receivables and pay them a commission for it (40% of the net receipts, etc).  How do you like that idea?

When your cupboards feel packed it’s time for a cardboard box and a marker.  What is this for?  It’s to put all the things you haven’t used in the last 3 months into said box.  Then write the contents on the box and DATE the box before putting it into storage in the basement.  Many benefits will come of this:

1) You’ll free up cabinet space – if you can see what’s in your cabinets you will use what’s in them.

2) The streamlining process reduces stress (it’s subtle, but when you experience it you’ll appreciate it.)

3) You don’t have to throw it away immediately.  Many of us have an emotional reaction to throwing something away.  “What if I’ll need this someday?”

4) Power comes from labeling the box with the date.  Let’s quantify “someday.”  The next time you get up the courage & energy to clean your basement you can approach the boxes in your basement with a plan.  You’ll go through the boxes that have been sitting on the shelf longer than 1 year.  It still has some value, but just no active value to you because you haven’t used it in a year.  So donate [or sell] the contents of the box so others in your community can pit it to use.

5) I love surprises – and when you go back through that box, you’ll find something you just cannot live without and you’ll take those few items out of the box and put it back in the kitchen.  An example could be the waffle maker you put in the box, and that rediscovered waffle maker will cause a new Saturday morning tradition.

I promise that clean and organized cupboards will help you love your existing kitchen.  Try it out.