Our wonderful friends at Yesteryear Cyclery are hard at work. Got a bike that is in good shape and want to help a local child have it?
What makes a person spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars every year, re-purposing, repairing and giving hundreds of bicycles away to local children in-need?
Ask Kim Camara of Yesteryear Cyclery why he does it, the next time you see him!
Abby and her family
Nine year-old Abby is in the 4th grade and lives over an hour away from New Bedford.
For the second year in a row, Abby asked friends coming to her birthday party not to bring her any gifts. Instead, she wanted them to bring new things that she could donate to GiftsToGive.
Abby likes to bring everything down to the mill with her sister, Maggie. Maggie is in the 2nd grade and just turned seven.
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A story about her visit with her classmates, from Emma. Photos from their day are here.
It’s a Saturday in Acushnet, and a group of students from Rising Tide Charter Public High School are spending it sorting clothes. Rising Tide’s Community Action Club has been planning their December 19 trip to GiftsToGive for weeks, and twenty five students arrived in the sprawling warehouse building excited to work.
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Kayla Smith, Flavia Miranda, Adrienne DePina, India Santiago, Sabine Charles, Anitra Alves, Alianah Grajales, Sofia Dias, Diana Jesus, Rylee Nogueira, Natasha Ferro and Martha Kay. (Not in order)
Two amazing women; Natasha Ferro and Martha Kay have been mentoring groups of middle school girls, after school, since 2012 at the Normandin Middle School.
“The Sorority” morphed into a Youth Philanthropy Group this year and with the guidance of Natasha and Martha their young women focused on issues that concerned them. In the beginning of the school year, they brainstormed a list of needs within our community and settled on animal abuse, domestic violence, gang activity, and homelessness.
This week they made a presentation to the Greater New Bedford Homeless Providers Network. Their speech was inspiring as was their work. Their speech defines the work they’ve done, please read it.
Read More »By: Evelyn Chase, Grade 7
“Philanthropy is about promoting the welfare of others. That is exactly what the organization GiftsToGive is all about. I have been to GiftsToGive five times now and during every single group orientation tour they tell us “50,000”. Then one of us always asks the obvious question; 50,000 what?
It may be silly that I remember that number but I also remember what comes after it as well. 50,000 is the number of children living locally in poverty. This statement always gets to me. What this means is that one of your friends, that person you thought was odd on the bus, or even a complete stranger, could or is living in poverty. So hold on and let me explain a little bit more. The definition of poverty is the state of being extremely poor. And although I may be going a little bit off topic with this one, it is extremely important. Just because you may think you know everyone’s situation you really don’t and that is what GiftsToGive in my opinion promotes.
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Librarian Laura Gardner and the Young Philanthropists
Dartmouth Middle School thought they’d collected a lot of books for GiftsToGive in 2010 when they collected over 3,200 gently used books for kids and teens in one week.
Then they smashed that record in 2011 by collecting over 6,000 gently used books.
Now DMS students have smashed that record once again by donating 7,154 books!
Read More »One of our annual traditions, is meeting the entire Bishop Stang Freshmen class at the factory.
Photo archive HERE. (This year’s photos are a gift from students; Amelia Bailey and Emily Iovanna)
We could talk all day, about what is right about young people, but we prefer they talk for themselves.
Thank you to student Veronica Bernier for the following essay:
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We talk a lot, about the power of one. Today we are talking about the power of three; Alexia, Kelvin and Victoria.
On the first Saturday in April, it was blustery, rainy and promised snow! Saturdays are a busy day for us, there are usually over one-hundred student volunteers at the factory helping us inspect, process and organize tons of donations. In the middle of what we like to think of as controlled chaos, in come Alexia, Kelvin and Victoria with a ton of their own donations. They had collected all this wonderful stuff for local children in-need as a part of their SKILLS USA competition at Greater New Bedford Vocational Technical High School.
We focused this special holiday on our service learning initiative with local Middle School students. We bused two-hundred students to Normandin Middle School.
Forty high school and college student leaders and select faculty, facilitated a three hour “Teach-in” revolving around the history of the voting rights movement, the activism and specifically, how students made a difference then and can again. The program also focused on the importance of voting and participating citizenship. (Day after local press here).
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Standard Times Story HERE
GiftsToGive Volunteer Jillian Zucco is crowned Miss Massachusetts!
Jillian is truly a bright and shining light and for us a most perfect example of giving and service.
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ORRJH Student Art Cards
Over a two day period, students at Old Rochester Regional Junior High School in Mattapoisett, produced the first of our one-of-a-kind GiftsToGive Inspirational Cards.
Read More »Every once in-a-while, we’re flabbergasted and we don’t flabbergast easily!
Nicole Long, one of our earliest adopters wrote last week – “SO PROUD of my niece Abby and her cousin Georgia: over Christmas vacation they brainstormed a charitable organization called “GAB” and collected over $100 in one weekend to help people less fortunate. This morning, Abby gave me the money… (Which is being matched by their Grandmother Blair!) to deliver to GiftsToGive and I can’t think of a more beautiful start to a new year. Love these girls and their giant hearts.”
Baxter House Students
The winners of Tabor Academy’s first quarter “Green Wars” competition, were the 25 young women in Baxter House! They collectively chose to give back.
Under the careful eye of the dorm’s “dean of green,” junior Sara Kosicki, the Baxter House residents were declared the campus’s best and most conscientious recyclers. As a result, money accumulated at the redemption center was given to the Baxter girls as a prize for their dorm’s thoughtful approach to caring for the planet. Rather than use the money for a weekend pizza party, the girls chose to use the money to buy socks and underwear. Why? Because they answered our call for help! Our supply of new socks and underwear, essentials many take for granted, is dangerously low. Hearing this, these amazing students acted!
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