Please see the message below from a group of students doing a project to benefit children who are removed from their home in Vermont. They are looking for donations of items for the bags, as well as volunteers to put them together on Nov. 20 between 6-9pm. Thanks!
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As part of their service learning project, business students at Champlain College will host an event on Nov 20 at 6-9 PM that will boost the Department of Children and Family Services’ (DCF) efforts of providing care and comfort to children in crisis in Vermont. The event is a “Bags of Fun Volunteer Night”, an initiative of Bags of Love Inc.
The Bags of Love Project was started in Lane county, Oregon, as a way to comfort children removed from their homes due to neglect, abuse, illness or poverty by giving them handmade bags that include basic toiletries, a quilt and a toy. The initiative has since extended its roots in Vermont with a chapter in St Albans. St Albans and Burlington have the highest numbers in the state, where as many as 27 children were removed from their homes in just one month in the city of St Albans.
The event activities include (but are not limited to) the following: filling bags, cutting and/or sewing bags or quilts, tying blankets, making toiletry kits, accepting and organizing donations, and starting to wrapping items for the holiday bags for children in crisis. Volunteers ages 7 years and up are welcome. The plan is to accept and organize donations prior to the event and then have the event mainly focus on assembling the bags and tying and sewing a few bags and quilts.
Edible Arrangements will provide a coupon to receive a free box of chocolate covered fruit to participants and donors.
DCF handles cases with all age groups, from infants to teenagers. We request donations of the following items to be dropped off at the Center for Service and Civic Engagement (Skiff Annex room 203) on or before Nov 20:
- Materials for making small quilts
- Toiletries – toothbrush, toothpaste, bathing soap
- Small, medium, and large plush toys (age and gender appropriate)
- Dolls (for girls)
- Journals (for teens)
- Deck of cards
- Disposable camera
- Phone card
- Stationery
- Baby bottles
- Diapers
- Wipes