Erin's 25th Birthday Homeless Kits!

Welp...we did it. Here's a photo of us on the big day in November. I updated on social media but figured I'd keep everyone on here in the loop as well. I posted this the Saturday after Thanksgiving:

"On the 1 year anniversary of when we ventured out with just 15 homeless kits, I packed into a small section on the 21st floor of my building with family and friends to put together 100 homeless kits. We handed out 25 today and plan to hand out even more over the next few months. Words cannot describe how grateful I am for everyone's help. Everyone was so excited to be there and help out in any way they could. A project over 10 months in the making. Many more pictures to come soon. I'm gonna go nap. I'm exhausted. Huge shoutout to Ashton for all her help today...been one of my biggest supporters of this whole thing. And huge shoutout to my mom for all her support. I have the best parents in the world. Thank you, Leslie for all your support and hard work. And another huge shoutout to Eric and his classmates for not only raising $144 but also working their butts off today to make the kits. Having strong men around definitely made a huge difference hahaha."

I still have a bunch of kits in my tiny apartment but I'm handing them out randomly. In fact, Saturday I handed out 5 in the neighborhood.

I'll post more as I hand more out.

Once again, thanks everyone. This was such an amazing experience!!!

​So I am absolutely terrible at these updates. I update fairly regularly on social media, particularly facebook and instagram, however, I know some of you don't follow me on those platforms.

ANYWAYS. Lots has been happening. For starters, we picked a date for our first rendezvous. (Which I think I mentioned in the previous update...) and November 28 is RAPIDLY approaching. Which is terrifying...

I ordered ALL of the items. $1,300 worth of supplies are currently being stored in my tiny downtown apartment (as you can see from the photo). It's so exciting to look at everyday. Soon we'll be spreading some love and happiness

I do have to give a huge shoutout to my friend Nick and his organization Epic Good. They so generously donated $500 to our homeless kits. His donation is being used to fund some add-ons that we thought of recently. (By we...I mean Bri. She had these awesome ideas). First, we bought a bunch of bags and are putting feminine products in them. (Could you imagine being homeless and not having those?? omgosh....) Anyways....secondly, his donation is going to buying crayons and printing out coloring pages for any kids we might come across. It also allowed us to buy children's toothbrushes and toothpaste.

We haven't bought all the supplies. We still need to get handwarmers and blankets. I'm hoping to order those this week on Amazon.

Thanks also, to everyone that has offered to help with them. At this point it's looking like we'll have 10-15 people helping out on the first run! that's amazing! The ongoing support never ceases to amaze me.

This is happening! I'm still in awe that we were able to raise $1600. Unbelievable. Thank you, once again, for all your kindness. This is such an amazing feeling. I'm so grateful that people want to make a difference in the world. I'm proud to have you all behind me! :)

xoxo
Erin

Hey everyone!

GOOD NEWS--we have picked an OFFICIAL date for our homeless kits. (At least the first round of kits...).

We're doing it November 28th. The Saturday after Thanksgiving. Things have been chaotic over here so I've finally spent some time figuring it out and booked everyone participating. It's in everyone's calendars! PHEW!

We know that we are absolutely going to have to do this at least twice. We're hoping to do some in December too. But we want to see how much money we have left and if people are willing to donate more.

Once we close this campaign in January, I'm hoping to start up a new one again and keep it open, so we can start doing this regularly.

Again, so sorry this took so long to do. We haven't done this in this capacity before so we have no idea what we're doing, so it's taking longer to figure out and plan. BUT WE ARE NOT COMPLAINING.

If anyone has any ideas to throw around about any of the logistics of where to do it and if they know anyone who can help get us free stuff or help out.

THE MORE HELP, THE BETTER!

We are still accepting donations, so please share if you haven't already! We want to spread as much happiness as possible. I'm so grateful for everyone's support.

I know we have taken forever to do this, but know we do have our hearts in the right place. I am still doing things on my own as often as I can....I try to buy a meal for a homeless Chicagoan at least once a week, so please know that this is still something that means so much to me.

Thanks again!! <3 <3

Hey everyone!

I’m so sorry for the lack of communication. Things have been crazy over here. I started a new job and it’s been taking up a lot of my time. Bri’s been working a lot too and planning a wedding at the same time, so we’re a little backed up.

In case you haven’t heard, I’m now employed by the National Runaway Safeline. It’s an organization that provides support for homeless and runaway youth through their hotline at 1-800-RUNAWAY. AKA, it’s pretty much the perfect organization for me to be a part of. They are incredibly supportive of what I’ve been doing, so much so, that my boss even personally donated to the kits!!!

In addition, they gave me a bunch of free materials to include in the homeless kits to offer support for the youth at The Crib. They gave me wallet cards, brochures, pencils, bookmarks, etc. It's awesome!

There have also been a lot of ideas and juices flowing in my head….Obviously, my birthday is well over and we’ve still been getting donations. I’ve also been contacted by a few others who are interested in still donating. That being said, there’s a possibility we may start doing this twice a year. If we do decide to do that, we may open a new campaign to gain continuous support if people are interested. We love doing this, but we just don’t have the funds to be able to do it regularly. While I would love for this to be a full-time job, that’s just not possible. Maybe one day...but not today.

Bri and I will be meeting soon to figure out more logistics and pick a day on the calendar (or multiple days). We’ve gotten a lot of people who want to participate in making and handing them out too, so it’s all very exciting!!!

It’s looking like we will be making AT LEAST 100 kits. Probably more. The logistics of everything is the messy part….for example, there’s no way this can be done in my tiny 600 sq ft apartment, so finding a location has been tricky as well, among other things. If anyone has any ideas on that one, let me know!

Sorry we haven't done it yet. But thanks for your patience! I promise we are going to do it ASAP, it's just tough since Bri and I are doing this in what little free time we have. We weren't prepared for over $1000 worth of donations (NOT THAT WE'RE COMPLAINING!)

In the meantime, feel free to spread the campaign more...since we will be doing it again in potentially the fall/winter, we can still take donations!

Thanks again for your patience. Sorry we suck.

Erin

Hey everyone! Just thought I’d stop in for a quick update (although I already know this won’t be quick…bear with me….lots of things are in motion!)

I haven’t posted much about the RAKE kits but I promise, there’s plenty going on behind the scenes. Last weekend Bri and I got together to go over logistics and figure out the budget for everything. We are really trying hard to get the best deal on products, so we can make as many kits as possible. We had everything figured out on Sunday, but things could easily change.

The woman that runs Hashtag Lunchbag Chicago is helping me get free products, so we are still figuring that out. As of now, we’re shooting for mid-June to make these kits.

Another minor change of plans happened this week. Monday night I caught a documentary on PBS called The Homestretch. It’s a film that follows 3 young members of the homeless community in Chicago. It was very moving. That being said, something in that documentary bothered me. There’s this place on the north side called The Crib. It’s a safe place for youth homeless to have dinner and spend the night. The documentary gave a good look into The Crib….

The Crib is very small. They only have room to house 20 people each night. However, around 35 show up each night. They literally pick names out of a hat to determine who can stay….meaning about 15 get turned away to find somewhere else to sleep. This completely broke my heart. I was up most of the night trying to figure out how I can help.

I spoke with Bri and my mom and we decided that’s where we want to focus our kits on. Instead of handing them out randomly like we did before, one night we’re hoping to go up there and give out some of the kits to not only the ones going into The Crib for the night, but the ones being turned away…so at least they’re not leaving empty-handed. After getting my hands on about 50 balls of yarn, we’re also talking about making bracelets to give to each of them…something a little personal, so they know they’re loved and not forgotten.

You can watch The Homestretch online here: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365446716/

We're working hard to make sure we make the best of this entire experience.

As always, I'm so grateful for the love and support I've gotten from everyone. I've never felt so loved!!! :)

Hey everyone! I just wanted to start off by saying thank you for all the donations. This has been amazing!

I am in awe of how much we've raised....$900 is insane! I was only expecting MAYBE $100....That being said, with only a few of us, we've talked about doing this a couple times since I'm shooting for over 100 if the numbers work out.

The original plan was to do one of them this upcoming Saturday. However, after re-crunching the numbers this weekend I realized there's no way we can have everything delivered by this upcoming Friday. So, we will have to postpone the first one.

Last time we did like 20 and were just able to go to the dollar store. But the dollar store will definitely not have 100 of all the items in stock, so we have to order bulk items online.

So sorry! I promise we will do them as soon as possible. If anyone wants to help out, please do not hesitate to contact me! We already have about 4 maybe 5 people helping, but 100 is a LOT, so I'm sure we can always use more!

In addition, I'm keeping the campaign open in case anyone wanted to donate more or didn't get a chance but wanted to. Since my head is spinning from all the numbers and it might be a few weeks until we get to do this, I figure it couldn't hurt to keep it going!

Thanks again! I feel so loved. I'm so excited to be able to give back to those who need it most....so thank you for helping me accomplish that!

xoxo
Erin