Thank you to everyone who made our Veterans Day 2009 collection drive and sort/pack event a huge success!
During our two week collection drive leading up to our November 14th sort/pack event, thousands of items were generously purchased and donated by volunteers across Los Angeles and surrounding cities from the South Bay to the San Fernando Valley.
Event organizers Tiffany Massey, Lee Lindenlaub, Stacy Cohen and Linda Green load in donations the night before the event.
The much needed clothing items and phone cards were sent to wounded troops recuperating at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Many of these troops were recently wounded on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, and find themselves at Landstuhl with nothing but their hospital gowns. Our wounded heroes are very much in need of basic comfort items during their recovery.
Donated items ready for volunteers to come sort, count and pack them.
Donations included 4,034 socks (the most needed item), 588 t-shirts, 369 pairs of underwear, 73 sweatpants, 58 zip front hoodies, 96 sports bras/tanks/camisoles, 62 gym shorts, 35 pajamas, 75 phone cards and 12 blankets among other things. Also donated were 64 video games, 17 DVD movies and 84 toiletry items.
Sorted, counted and packed donations fully covered six 6 foot long conference tables.
Sixty-two volunteers joined us to sort, count and pack the donations on Saturday, November 14, 2009, at The Culver Studios, which once again generously donated the space for this event.
Volunteers sorting donated clothes into piles by category.
The items were divided up by category, tallied and packed into Fedex bags for transport to the Soldiers' Angels shipping warehouse in Newbury Park, CA.
Event organizer Lee Lindenlaub (left) helping volunteers seal up their packages of sorted socks.
At the end of this process, our incredible volunteers sat down at our letter-writing stations and composed a remarkable 711 heartfelt thank you letters and get well soon cards to the troops, as well as thank yous to the doctors, nurses and staff at LRMC to thank them for all they do.
Volunteers compose letters to wounded soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, inside....
...and out.
Among the letters were many beautiful childrens' drawings. These letters, cards and drawings accompanied the clothing items and phone cards to Landstuhl.
Letters, cards and childrens' drawings bound for wounded American troops in Germany.
Volunteers also purchased $210 worth of gas cards which will be distributed to veterans here at home to help defray the cost of travel to often far-away VA hospitals.
Thank you to everyone who participated and made this event possible!
We would like to thank Culver Studios for giving us the space and total access to the lot to stage this event, which we couldn't have done without this gracious donation. We would also like to thank State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, State Senator Fran Pavley, U.S. Congresswoman Jane Harman, State Assemblymember Ted Lieu and LA City Councilmembers Eric Garcetti, Tom LaBonge, Herb Wesson, Bill Rosendahl and Janice Hahn and their staffs, as well as the OFA California State Headquarters staff for so generously opening their offices to us to serve as donation collection points. We are also grateful to our friends at the L.A. Air Force Base, Mira Costa High School, Manhattan Beach Fire Dept., the Democratic Action Center, Brookside Elementary, The Country School and The Neighborhood School for helping collect donations. Many thanks to Fedex as well for once again donating packing materials.
Event organizer Stacy Cohen with the 5,594 items donated by generous volunteers.
We are planning to do this event again in May 2010 for Memorial Day. We will be reaching out to volunteers to ask you to organize collections in your neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. If you'd like to volunteer for the Memorial Day 2010 event, please email stacy@30barack.com.
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