Books to the Rescue -- a project with the City of Duncanville Fire Dept.
The grant to be used for the project Books to the Rescue has been received and the Service Committee has met to begin working on the project. A meeting with City of Duncanville Fire Chief Dave Giordano was held in early Feb. He was very excited about the project and is in the process of collecting some statistics on the number of children that his EMT’s have transported to hospitals over the past months. This will help us greatly in establishing the number of packets that we will be assembling and in estimating how long they should last. Currently the books have been ordered (along with 33 books that were donated by President Robins) and we are also investigating the other items that will be in the packets, including non-toxic crayons, coloring books, thank you cards, etc. We prepare 100 packets and delivered them to the D'Ville Fire Dept in April 2010. In June 2010, we had a small kickoff with the Fire Dept (see pictures above)
Make A Difference Day 2010 -- Saturday, October 23, 2010
Altrusa SW Dallas County held a Shred-a-thon at the Cockrell Hill Baptist Church.
Sierra Shred (co-owned by Club member, Lucretia Lucio) provided shredding service for a donation of $5 per bag or box and/or donation of a new or gently used book. All proceeds went to the Storybook Project, a project through the Texas Inmate Families Association. $300 was collected as well as 50+ books. A check was presented to TIFA representative Micki Roark in Feb. 2011.
DeSoto Food Pantry -- November 2010
Food was collected by members to be donated to the DeSoto Food Pantry, Pantry representative
Suzanne Phillips was the guest speaker at the meeting and accepted the food donations from the members.
PAST SERVICE PROJECTS
Altrusa SW Dallas County's other on going service projects include working with the DeSoto Food Bank, the Storybook Project and Dallas Dress for Success. In December 2009, the Club gave another $100 to the DeSoto Food Bank to help with shortages that were occurring due to the high demand for food from the local community.
In FY 2008-2009 the SW Dallas County Club members donated 121 pounds of food to the DeSoto Food Bank and also presented them with a check for $150 to purchase items needs for clients. President Elnora Robins is also a weekly volunteer at the DeSoto Food Bank.
Also in 2008-2009, the Club members brought and donated more than 50 children's books to the Storybook Project - a project of the Texas Inmate Families Association which allows incarcerated parents to engage in the reading and development of their small children and provides an opportunity for meaningful contact between the child and the parent. The donated books are made available (through TIFA) so that they can make an audio recording of the book -- the book and recording are then mailed to the inmate's child.
Other Service projects we have completed over the last year include collecting household items that were donated as part of the 2009 District Nine Conference Service project that went to help abused women in the Bell County / Temple, TX area.
