Operation Undies 2011--The Organizations

With a few simple phone calls, e-mails and facebook requests I had a team of people and organizations ready in only a few weeks to step up and provide relief. Some of the organizations and people I did not know before this project. They found out about the project from someone and got my contact information and called me to ask how they could help.

Tiffany Dance Company

Elite Dance Academy

Love 2 Learn Preschool

Shining Star Preschool

Angie Barker’s Preschool

Merrick Bank

Grandview Neighborhood Christmas Social

Copper Oaks Relief Society

Schmidt Family and Friends

Hamilton Family

SEO.com

Peterson Family

Olson/Jeffery’s Family

Saunders/Storm Family

Saunders/Storm’s sisters ward who sponsored 5 more families

My Facebook Friends

Kicks for Kids Charity

Tyler Staten’s Eagle Project

Robinson Real Estate Company aka Utah Dave

Various generous donors

The relief and donations they provided came in several different forms. In all we ended up with…

· Enough gently used clothing via the Copper Oaks Relief Society to outfit the entire school several times. Here's some of my favorite sisters who helped with most the real work of collecting all our used items.

· More than 70 blankets and over 100 packs of socks and underwear via Tyler Staten’s Eagle Scout Project.

This is the only photo of Tyler I got somehow.

But look at all these blankets that he not only collected fabric for, but also tied himself or with the help of other youngsters he organized.

· More than 500 packs of underwear via a combination of groups including:

The employees at SEO.com.

This is one of my favorite and best roomies ever who works at SEO. She even delivered the load to my house. SEO for your information also sponsored a family at the school for Sub for Santa. I can't believe how generous these folks were.

Love 2 learn—Shining Star and Angie Barker’s Preschools. Unfortunately I only got one photo so this represents all the little preschool kids who pack sock and undies to school to donate to other preschoolers. So sweet!

My Facebook and real friends. How I didn't take a photo of all the donations that were put in my box is beyond me. But I did get donations and I was very happy with each delivery. If you came to my house I wasn't here to thank you in person, consider this your...THANK YOU!

The Grandview Neighborhood Christmas Social

This was the brainchild of Heidi Vawdrey, pictured above with her husband. She invited her neighborhood over to her house for Christmas cheer and snacks and invited all who wished to participate to drop off packages of socks and underwear in lieu of exchanging neighbor gifts with each other. Brilliant. For your information, I didn't know Heidi. She's one of several people who heard about this and found me.

· 112 pairs of NEW shoes via Merrick Bank and Kicks for Kids Charity.

Here are some employees at Merrick Bank graciously posing for a photo with the shoes they kindly bought. I may also mention that with the corporate match Merrick offered to cash donations, they also donated $650.

I had a great time carting their donations out and loading them in my van. It was all so very unexpected. My brother Scott who works there mentioned it to the HR department and they decided to take it up as their cause. Amazing. Here's my brother in front of their wall of giving. Employees came and took a paper with a shoe size to buy. Very cute, very effective.

We also collected nearly $1200 in cash donations from some very generous people...Including a pair of brothers who live down the street from me. They are nine and seven years old. They came to my door with their parents. Each of the boys had an envelope in their hand for me with their own money that they had wanted to donate to the kids at this school so they could have some warm clothes to wear and food to eat.

Inside the envelope they handed me was a combined amount of $100. I was totally blown away. These two little boys had just given me what I assume was their life’s savings. How’s that for kindness?

· 110 NEW coats via Tiffany Dance Company and Elite Academy.

Here's Tiffany and part of her crew.

And Elite and their beautiful dancers.

Robinson Real Estate Company AKA Utah Dave most generously donated the use of one of their company trucks to me, a total stranger to them. How did I arrange this? I asked. Go figure. Dave was on a very important phone call when I picked up and dropped off the truck. I'm sure he was making big multimillion dollar deals--and keeping his clients very happy. I was not able to meet him, so one of his employees came and posed for me. Thanks Jeanette!

As a part of this project I had 12 families (that I know of) who heard the call of Operation Undies and went beyond the call by sponsoring 12 of the most needy and deserving families at the school with a full Christmas experience. It was really crazy. I just couldn't believe how many people called me up and wanted to do this. It was so wonderful and so generous. Here are a few pics that some of the sponsor families shared with me.

Here is...
The Schmidt family and friends collection. 24 boxes! Plus a double bed, a dresser and a nightstand. Amazing!

Here's the Olson-Jeffrey's-Federico family collection. They're my cousins.

The personally delivered their load and had the most magical experience.

Here's one representative of the Peterson family who sponsored a family. This is my cousin Margie's in-laws.

Instead of exchanging sibling gifts they sponsor another family. I LOVE that idea. So much more meaningful.

Here's the collection from the Hamilton Family.
They decided to scale back their family's gifts this year and to sponsor a family in need instead. Love it. What a collection!

It was amazing to me to see all the willing hands and hearts that wanted to help. Because of all the organizations and families who helped, this project was huge and very successful.