I woke up to a very happy surprise this morning- phone calls & emails from our family letting us know that we had made the front page of the Elkhart Truth!

I was interviewed yesterday about our Big Give with Faith Mission and they wrote a wonderful story about what we are trying to do. A big thanks to Katie Rogers, the journalist who took the time to write about us, and the Elkhart Truth for giving us the publicity we need to make something BIG happen for Faith Mission.

I am hopeful that area businesses will read about this and want to help!

Wednesday evening we got to sit down with Mike Perez, the Development Director at Faith Mission, to discuss where we would fit in best with their mission to serve the homeless. In respect to his time and the wonderful people that are staying there we did not film within the shelter.

Mike took us on a tour of their facility and we visited every little corner and crevice of the shelter. We were able to come in around the dinner hour and see the 150 people who had come through to dine there that evening. We also were able to see all of the organization that goes behind serving and arranging the food for these meals and the incredible donations that come in to help with their free drop-in meals.

We visited their chapel and learned how they try to offer life-changing solutions through their in-house programs. Mike stressed that they try to figure out the cause for their homelessness and then decide a course of treatment so that they can live on their own. They offer classes and have a mental health program that helps their residence with addictions and mental illness. Their goal is to help give them the skills they need so that they are ready to take on a job, basic life skills (money management being one of them), & recovery support with a faith-based foundation.

After we toured the facility, we sat down and asked Mike how we could help them with what they are doing. He said the very best thing we could do for them, at this time, would be assisting them with their “welcome kits.” A welcome kit is given to each resident when they come in to stay at the shelter.

Each Welcome Kit would consist of the following:

• Toothbrush
• Toothpaste
• Shaving Cream
• Razor
• Lotion
• Body Wash
• Deodorant
• Washcloth
• Towel
• Shower Tote/Storage Container

I asked Mike to also think of what they might need on a grander scale, as they are in the process of renovating a new space for their women and this was his…

Dream Wish List:

Appliances needed for the 915 Benham project. All of the appliances need to be energy star rated and all in color white if possible:

• 7- 2’wide Dishwashers
• 4- 1’10” wide under cabinet Refrigerators
• 4- 30”-32” wide standard Refrigerators
• 10- small to medium handing microwaves

After we finished making our wish list, we headed over to my car where I had many of these:

EyeClops Night Vision Infrared Stealth Goggles ($68.88, Jakks Pacific)

And many of these:

Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker ($29.88, Jakks Pacific)

Made possible by my affiliation with this:

A big thank you to Walmart & their great 11 Moms venture as well as Jakks Pacific for giving me the opportunity to share these gifts with these incredible people. This is exactly the reason I am in 11 Moms and I am thankful for the opportunity to share within my community. These gifts will be given to the children when celebrating those special occasions in their life, like birthdays & Christmas.

Now that we know what we can do for them, we have made a goal to provide 50-100 kits (depending on our donations) and provide one appliance on their dream list.

Is it possible? I truly believe that anything is possible and my next steps will be:

1. Getting as much press involved as I can for our efforts.
2. Trying to raise donations to put towards the cost of our welcome kits.
3. Researching & finding the best price I can on the items for the kits.
4. Researching & finding the best price I can on one of the items on their appliance wish list.

If you have any suggestions for tackling this project, I am all ears! Has anyone bought in bulk like this? Any resources or steps you can recommend?

I am just speechless by the response that we have received already from each of you on our Big Give mission. The emails, the donations, the comments, the messages, the blog entries that have been written truly moved me to tears yesterday. I felt like I was taking a risk putting this out here, but now I know how good it feels to be sharing this with all of you and to know that you want to make a difference in your own communities (and even in my little town) has been an incredible gift.

Today is the first vlog in our series sharing about our Big Give. Before I began this, I knew that I would need to call them and see if Faith Mission would even accept our help. What would they need? What could we do to make their days a little better? Who did they serve?

I was extremely nervous and went into an immediate sales pitch of myself and what I hoped to do for our local shelter. It was a careful balance of not wanting to over commit and disappoint them, but wanting to also exude confidence that I could get the backing that we needed to make a Big Give happen.

The response from them was incredible and I knew that we had picked the perfect charity to work with. Not only were they excited about anything we could do, but they were excited to bring us in so we could immediately see what they really need and to help us better understand their mission.

Tonight we will be heading to Faith Mission to get a glimpse into their day and we have received permission to take some video footage so we can share it with all of you! I can’t wait to share more with you about the charity as our family works towards making this Big Give happen!

In short, step one for us was contacting the charity and seeing how we could fit in with their missions and goals.

On a much lighter note, don’t you love this dorky expression that I have on my face? Why does it have to appear like this. You will also notice someone dropping in on my party halfway through. Wouldn’t you wonder what was going on if your mom was sitting at the kitchen table talking to herself? Again? Well, maybe that doesn’t happen in your house… My house also looks like it was hit by a tornado. Remember that little person that is crashing in on my video? Yup, that is exactly what happened. This is my real life- dorky expressions, a house that has been hit by a tornado, & talking to myself. Enjoy!

Image Credit: femuruy

Recently Ron Hudson, from Immediate Influence, created a list with the top 50 most influential women in social media, and to my surprise, I found myself listed as #8 on that list. I don’t mention this to brag, but I mention this because the list claimed that we were not only influential, but that we were also very powerful women.

With power comes great responsibility though and I don’t feel like I have been using my internet powers for all the good that I can. I have quietly been taking care of myself and my family and reaping the rewards that come along with it- free trips, free products, and great connections.

My muscle is weak, but I want to flex it a little bit right now because I owe it to myself and I owe it to my community.

You see, my hometown is filled with factories with laid off workers. My town is filled with families who can’t pay their bills. My town is filled with hungry children. Don’t believe it? My hometown was featured in the New York Times recently and they stated this, “Elkhart, near the Michigan border in an area known as Michiana, is the white-hot center of the meltdown of the American economy. Its main industries, the manufacturing of recreational vehicles and motor homes, have fallen apart over the last year because of high gasoline prices. That has taken down ancillary businesses like R.V. parts suppliers and storage warehouses. The jobless rate in Elkhart has increased more than in any metropolitan area in the country; it rose over 4.8 percentage points from August 2007 to August 2008. According to labor statistics released this summer, nearly 10,000 people were out of work, a rate of 9.3 percent.”

My family is made up of blue collar workers who work hard for a living and they all live in uncertainty if their jobs will last. My family members have been laid off, they have been worried about health care, and they are swallowed by medical bills. Likewise, surviving a year of my husband being laid off was one of the hardest times in our marriage, the hardest time in our finances, and the hardest time as a parent. We have made it through, but many families can’t.

I want to do something big for our local shelter. I want to give what I can to help the families who are not able to have a bright Christmas. I want them to have something to look forward to.

It is hard to put it out here in black and white because now I have to do it. I am gathering the names of all the PR people who have contacted me to do product reviews and giveaways to help me make something happen in my town. Even if we do not receive help from anyone, we have reserved money in our savings to do something on our own. We are hoping though to make a bigger difference than that though and have high hopes that our prayers and dreams will come true.

If you are in PR, if you are a business that can donate, I ask that you email me ([email protected]) and tell me what you can do for our local shelter. I will include and publicize any business that contributes to my give through our website and blog, along with a special shout-out on The MotherLoot for the entire month of January. It will be the first entry that anyone sees for that whole month and it will say, “Thank You to these Powerful Companies.”

In addition, if you are a blogger who can share about our efforts on your blog or if you can contribute in your hometown and dedicate an entry to us, we will thank you in a blog entry for making your own charitable efforts.

Our local shelter, Faith Mission, has an urgent need for the following items:

Want to give financially? You can donate to our cause via the following link. We’ve set no minimum amount. Your heart will determine that:

I will be video documenting our journey and sharing our triumphs and struggles as we work on our big give and I really encourage you to follow us as we learn more about our shelter and the need that lies within our own community. You can follow our videos as we add them here:

Watch the Mission Unfold:

MomAdvice’s Big Give: Kickoff
The Faith Mission Wish List
Big Give Makes the Front Page
Big Give Makes Big Strides

With power comes great responsibility, how can you flex your powerful muscle in your community?

Here is our banner and if you will be sharing about our big give efforts or if you are doing a big give in your town, please link up to our entry and we will give you FREE advertising on our blog for the month of January. We want to see pictures and hear your own inspiring stories in your town. We want to make a difference and we know you do!

Here is the code for the button, if you would like to place it on your blog:

To make it easier to track participants, just add your name to the Mr. Linky below. Feel free to use the banner for your blog or for your particular entry.