On April 27th, we began a collection drive for an organization called Operation Gratitude that sends care packages to US Military. With this being our first year working with the organization, we didn’t really know what to expect but we knew we were excited to work with an organization with such an amazing cause at the core of their operations.
We set some lofty goals for ourselves.
- We would seek out 11 different businesses to team up with to serve as collection sites during the collection drive.
- We wanted to donate 1,000 items to potentially create 460 care packages.
The collection kits were delivered. Email blasts were sent out. Coverage of the collection drive was distributed through various social media sites.
Each week we went to the various collection sites to collect the items that had been donated. The feeling that we had each Friday as we met with our collection partners and heard the feedback they had been receiving was such a cool experience!
At the end of the collection drive on May 20th, we realized we had not met our goal. We had EXCEEDED IT!! When I say we exceeded it, I don’t mean by a few items… what began as what we thought to be a lofty goal, grew into total that exceeded the original goal by 380%!! Yep, you read that right! We sought to collect 1000 items and we collected over 4800 items!
We are so humbled by the support and generosity of all who donated and of each and everyone of our collection partners. We could not have imagined exceeded our goal by such amounts and know that the success of our efforts is directly tied to the support and generosity of our customers who donated, our collection partners, their customers, and the ongoing support of Operation Gratitude! We wanted to share with you pictures from throughout the collection drive and know when you see all that collected you will understand our overwhelming joy we experienced when seeing all the donated items together on our sorting tables!
Thank you to our collection site partners! Without your support none of this would have been possible!!
What happens with all the donations?
Once the collection drive was over, we held a sorting / packing day at our facility on May 20th. Together with our volunteers, we packed up and sorted over 4800 items to be shipped out to Operation Gratitude. It took 16 boxes to fit all the donations to prepare for shipment.
These donations will now be made in to care packages and these care packages are addressed to Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines deployed overseas, Veterans, New Recruits, First Responders, Wounded Warriors and children of those deployed.
We did have some larger items that were donated that couldn’t be sent in the care packages so we were able to bring these donations to the Armory in Valparaiso, IN to give to some local servicemen. An AmeriClean employee that had served a tour in Afghanistan, accompanied us to the Armory and were able to give the donations to some individuals he actually served with!
The collection drive was such a success and we look forward to hosting again next year! Thank you again to everyone who supported our efforts and helped us to reach and exceed our goal!
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