A Stellar Backpack Donation

Yesterday, HSP received a wonderful donation of 29 backpacks full of school supplies from a drive organized by a special donor, Ian Netter. Ian, an 18 year old resident of Buffalo Grove, was born in Paraguay and was adopted by a family in Illinois. His experience visiting Paraguay several years ago inspired him to spear head a project to collect and donate school supplies to needy children there. He has been donating school supplies to Paraguay ever since, and this year he managed to run such a successful drive that he felt compelled to reach out to local children in need, as well.

We wish to thank Ian, and his mother Robin who dropped the donation off, for these 29 excellent backpacks filled with supplies such as folders, notebooks, crayons, colored pencils, erasers, and pens. We also wish to thank everyone else who made our school supply drive so successful this summer. We had three vans filled to the brim with school supplies that went to the DuPage County Fairgrounds School Supply event on August 8^th, and have numerous other supplies that have gone, and will continue to go, straight to schools and children in need. 

Loads of Entertainment for only Thirty Dollars

They’re back! 2012-2013 Entertainment Books are here at HSP. These books have $20,100 worth of savings in coupons for only $30. These coupons can save you money on dine-in restaurants, fast food eateries, sport events, theater shows, concerts, exercise classes, skydiving, vacations, shopping and so much more! If all of these incentives weren’t enough then how about knowing that all of the proceeds from the books we sell go to help our Senior Citizen Project.

Chalk full of savings

This year there’s a new way to enjoy your Entertainment Book coupons. Inside each book is a savings card that allows you to find updated coupons throughout the year. Also if you have a smart phone you can download the app and use coupons directly you’re your phone, no need to print. The coupons are valid from when you buy the book today until November 2013, that’s over a year’s worth of entertainment!

As we mentioned before the proceeds from these Entertainment Books goes to our Senior Citizen Project. The Senior Citizen Project provides senior citizens on a monthly basis with 90 pounds of fruits and vegetables, non-perishables, frozen meat, bread, personal care items, and a special pal gift. Help our needy seniors by purchasing an Entertainment Book today!

Our intern Rachel W. showing off the new books

Giving Back Again and Again

HSP would like to send another big thank you to our friends at Kohl’s in Wheaton for coming out to help us finish organizing our warehouse shelves. Yesterday from 9am-12pm the Kohl’s Cares volunteers were here helping us clean and reorganize our pantry and warehouse. Last week, Kohl’s Cares came to help us start reorganizing our pantry. Kohl’s Cares is a charitable program run by Kohl’s that helps local organizations with volunteers and support donations. We were happy to see some familiar faces with three returning volunteers from the earlier group. We were also excited to see two new faces joining the team. Our Senior Citizen Project Coordinator, Tierney, noted the Kohl’s Care volunteers were, “very helpful. We would not have been able to get this project done so quickly without their stupendous support.” 

 Thanks to these two groups from Kohl’s our pantry space is more efficiently organized to store food for our Senior Citizen Project. Also we’re able to quickly and more easily serve our seniors. Kohl’s has been a great supporter of HSP and we enjoy seeing them time and time again. Thank you again Kohl’s and Kohl’s Cares volunteers for helping us out and coming in with a wonderful attitude to brighten our day!

Community-minded Birthday Girl Brings Joy to the Needy

Last week, HSP was delighted to receive both a visit and donation from local twelve-year-old Emily Giovingo. For her recent birthday, Emily asked her guests, not for a gift for herself, but for gifts to go to the needy children in our Children’s Birthday Project. Emily sure must be popular, because the donations from her party filled 4 boxes and 1 very large bag of new gifts including games, activity sets, and books. We want to thank Emily and her friends for these gifts, which will become part of the 20-25 lb “birthday box” each of the 888 needy children in our project receive. These boxes contain 4 to 8 new toys, 5-7 new books, school supplies, numerous smaller gifts, and a “party in a bag” which contains all the necessary supplies for a memorable birthday party.

Emily is part of “The Community Girlz,” a local, charitable club she has formed with seven of her friends. According to Emily’s mother Sharon Giovingo, these eight seventh graders run the organization almost completely independent of parental help. On top of donations like this one Emily organized for her 12^th birthday, The Community Girlz biggest event is an annual fundraising fair. For this fair, the girls host activities, and sell crafts and baked goods to raise money for local charities. In the past three years that the girls have run the fair, they have raised over $2500 for the charities they support!

The Community Girls: Emily, Donna, Tam, Lydia, Jessica, Abigail, Kelly and Sharielle

Here at HSP, we think it’s fantastic to see young people so engaged in helping the needy of the community. We, again, want to thank Emily and her friends for donating greatly needed toys for the sake of the impoverished children served by our Children’s Birthday Project, and we wish her and the Community Girlz continued success in their efforts to support local charities.

New Addition to the Intern Team

Today at HSP we were excited to welcome a new general intern to our team, Margaret Zieke. Margaret is a senior at Elmhurst College working towards a degree in History.  After she has finished her degree she’s looking into possibly going on to study law and ultimately finding her career. Margaret comes to us from a small town in Minnesota called Caledonia. After branching out away from her hometown, Margaret was exposed to a whole new environment and found a passion for learning and exploring. In the past, Margaret has worked with HSP before as a volunteer. For a project in her Intercultural Seminar class she volunteered here with her classmates. Her most recent volunteer experience was when she worked at the La Crosse Historical Society in La Crosse, Wisconsin. At the La Crosse Historical Society she worked as a collections intern cataloging artifacts.

In her free time she loves to read, she especially likes historical non-fiction. Her favorite writers include David McCullough and David Sedaris. Some hobbies Margaret enjoys are being a Trivial Pursuit guru and playing the bagpipes. During her time here at HSP, Margaret hopes to find out more about the inner workings of a non-profit and gain business experience. With her upbeat attitude and eagerness to learn new things, we know she will fit in perfectly here at HSP. Help us in welcoming our new intern Margaret Zieke. 

Clear Your Clutter for a Good Cause

It’s not too late to donate your gently used items to Allured Business Media’s Charity Garage Sale. All of your donations support HSP because Allured Business Media has pledged to match every dollar up to $7,500. Allured’s goal is to raise $15,000 in order to add another impoverished senior into our Senior Citizen Project, in perpetuity. So, if you’ve got clutter in your closet or basement, consider donating it to the sale and help feed a needy senior.

Examples of items they are looking for items are: furniture, children and baby toys and furniture, lamps, sporting goods, kitchen electronics, household items like glass ware & dishes, tools, exercise equipment, clothing accessories such as belts, purses and scarves, travel luggage etc. However, they will not accept any clothing, or any stained or nonfunctional items.

If you are interested in donating, you can still drop off donations today at Allured Business Media’s office located at 336 Gunderson Dr. Suite A, Carol Stream, IL 60188. They will be accepting donations until 6pm today and 8am-12pm tomorrow. If you wish to attend the garage sale, it starts on September 7^th and goes till September 8^th from 9am-4pm both days.

Kohl’s Lends a Helping Hand

Today at HSP we were happy to welcome a spectacular group of five volunteers from Kohl’s. Kohl’s has its own charity organization called Kohl’s Cares and they donate three hours of volunteer time for each event along with money to community organizations like HSP. They were here with us today to help reorganize and redesign our pantry. In our warehouse we have shelves full of non-perishables, ready to eat meals, pasta, coffee, cookies, crackers, soups, and more! These wonderful volunteers spent their time today helping us streamline our warehouse’s food shelves, so we can serve our seniors more efficiently. Every month 120 seniors in our Senior Citizen Program receive 90 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen meat, bread, non-perishables, personal care items, and paper products.

We are very thankful for the continued support and dedicated service of Kohl’s and Kohl’s Cares volunteers. We want to especially thank Patty Capela for organizing her team to come out and volunteer today. Kohl’s has been a big supporter of HSP and our mission to alleviate the pain and suffering in the lives of impoverished children, seniors, and families in DuPage and Kane Counties. It is thanks to the generous support of companies and organizations like Kohl’s we are able to continue to serve the needs of those less fortunate then ourselves.