A Big Thank You to LexisNexis!

Yesterday, LexisNexis, in addition to two Midwestern University students, donated their time to paint parking spaces for HSP. The hot and humid weather was a challenge, but you never would have guessed it was an issue because of their positive attitudes and friendly smiles. Their efforts paid off, and our lot has never looked better! Thank you LexisNexis for all of your hard work and continued support!

Midwestern University Helps HSP Feed the Kids

Today we had 18 volunteers from Midwestern University in Downers Grove help prepare HSP for our last Feed the Kids Pickup date which is tomorrow, August 3^rd. Sarah Grindstaff, our Senior Citizen Project Coordinator, led the group as they helped box the 18 different beautiful types of produce from Caputos.

Along with the delicious produce, we are also giving the families four boxes of non-perishable food including everything from pasta to juice weighing in at over 100 pounds! We are also donating 8 different types of frozen meat to the families, the groceries totaling to over 250 pounds of food for each family. The total retail value is $497 for this food.

We are so thankful for all of the help that Midwestern University and all of our other volunteers gave to make our Feed the Kids program a success this summer! Thank you for all of your hard work and support!

If you would like to know more about our other programs please look at our website: www.humanitarianservice.org or contact us by email: hsp@humanitarianservice.org or by phone: (630) 221-8340.

Happy Birthday Alex!

As the Children’s Birthday Project may have led you to believe, we love birthdays! So when one of us here at HSP has a birthday, we celebrate!

Today staff member Alex Gordy celebrated his 26^th birthday!

Alex, our Database Administrator keeps HSP’s records up to date and among other responsibilities is the resident fixer of paper jams!

To celebrate Alex’s birthday, the entire staff along with two of our interns ate a delicious lunch from Jimmy John’s. Sharon Sass, even bought Alex’s favorite cake, tiramisu, for dessert! As with any good party, we had streamers and Alex had a birthday “cowboy” hat to celebrate. Happy Birthday Alex from HSP!

Thank You Student Life!

Last week, a wonderful group of olunteers helped us out with a variety of projects here at HSP. The group of 16 volunteers drove all the way from Missouri to participate in the annual Student Life Camp, hosted by Wheaton College. Every year, the camp sends groups of middle school and high school aged volunteers all over DuPage County to do service in the community.

HSP has been fortunate to work with various Student Life groups over the years. The volunteers are always incredibly hardworking and committed to helping us and the people we serve. This year’s group was no exception. They completed a variety of tasks and did so with so much energy and so many smiles. They helped us prepare for Feed the Kids, which is coming up this Wednesday, August 3rd, by making meat bags, bread bags, and boxes of non-perishables. They also sorted potatoes and onions for the 100 families that will be here on Wednesday for Feed the Kids and food to be used for the Senior Citizen Project. We also appreciate the work they did to help spruce up HSP a bit, which included fixing the cracks in the pavement of the parking lot, laying down mulch outside, and washing the vans – projects that were all very much needed!

The volunteers were here on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and they were extremely helpful. Amy Velder, the Student Life group’s leader summed up where all their energy came from and why they were able to be so productive. She said, “We’re just so excited to be here and to be able to help out at this particular site.” We at HSP could not be more thankful for all of Student Life’s hard work last week. Thank you!

HSP Goes Green

This summer, co-founder of HSP Floyd Kettering and intern Naveed Shah have been researching more enviornmentally-friendly technologies for HSP's facilities.

With HSP's future goal of expanding its warehouse by 5,000 square feet in the back of their heads, Floyd and Naveed decided it was time to power our growing facility with cleaner energy. The installation of a wind turbine will allow us to expand on our primary goal of giving back to our community. It will give us the opportunity to give back to our enviornment.

With our plan for installing a wind turbine laid out in front of us, Naveed has been working on all of the logistics to get the project started. After getting our site evaluated to see how much energy we consume on a day-to-day basis, Naveed will be working with the Carol Stream City Hall to see about construction permits for the wind turbine. In addition to this, Naveed and Floyd are looking into grants from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, which will help HSP with funding for both the installation of the turbine and site evaluation.

These exciting first steps are just the beginning to the project, but the finished product will not only reduce costs and set new priorities, but will hopefully inspire other organizations to take initiative on a matter that is growing in importance every day.

Keeping Up With Our Interns

Today at HSP we have five out of our seven interns in the office! Our interns have all been working very hard lately and we would like to take this opportunity in our blog to keep you updated with what they are up to.

Michelle who has been with us since late May has been working on the senior referrals for things such as hearing aids and glasses. She has also been working on sending out thank yous to our senior sponsors, and updating our Senior Citizen Project waiting list. We will miss Michelle because unfortunately next week is her last week here.

Alaina, who has also been with us since late May, has been making display boards for our speaker team and updating the display boards in the warehouse. Alaina, sadly, is wrapping up her projects because today is her last day here at HSP.

Mo is helping us out with contacting libraries to find out if we can set up display boards and brochures in their locations, later today she will also help out by sorting school supplies that have been donated to us.

Dan, who has been at HSP since mid June has been working on some of our manuals. He will also be helping Mo in the warehouse today sorting school supply donations.

Andrew has been making and designing a manual for our website. This is very important because other interns will need to know how to navigate through the website in the future.

HSP’s two other interns Lauren, and Naveed, have also been working hard and we would like to thank all our interns for their dedication!

Another Storm Passes Through

Many of the employees and interns here at HSP experienced the intense storm at its fullest last night and it was truly severe summer weather. The combination of scorching temperatures, forceful winds, thunder and lightening left trees down and power out this morning from the thunderstorms.

Sharon, HSP’s Administrative Assistant, has been without power since late last night and some of us at HSP had to drive to work through traffic lights that were out. We hope the weather clears up soon and we can bring back the relaxing summer sun!

Everyone here at HSP hopes that no one had too much damage from the storm and was able to be some where safe. As a precaution, HSP suggests that you stay tuned to local weather reports when the weather looks compromising and be sure to keep flashlights handy incase the power ever goes out.

HSP wishes everyone safe being in this crazy summer weather!