September 19 General Meeting

We had a lively meeting at Teresa Royer’s lovely home last Thursday evening with 20 TWC volunteers in attendance. As usual, the food and company were fantastic. If you’ve never been able to make a TWC evening potluck, please try and join us in the future. It’s a nice way to spend a couple of hours and helps you understand just what it is that we’ve been up to between meetings.

Nancy Hanson kindly took notes so I’d like to share them with you so you’ll all be up to date with TWC happenings. Any omissions are mine.

It’s Been a Busy Year!

Firstly, we’ve been busy. At the meeting we mentioned that we’ve had 41 set-ups since January.  Well, this week has been busy and we’re now (as of Friday) up to 45. And that, as you all know, takes some organizing and a fair amount of money. While we’re happy that so many families are being moved along into permanent housing, we also know we can’t let up for a minute on our fundraising efforts.

2019 Challenge Grant Campaign

To that end, Debra Silbar and Karla Morrison have been hard at work on our 2019 Challenge Grant Campaign. Debra, working hard with Network for Good, has put together a great, easy-to-navigate fundraising page. Karla has secured $10,000 in matching funds so we need to raise that amount to ensure we get it all! We have sent all volunteers the information on how you can set up your own fundraising page and Debra is happy to answer any questions you might have. Remember, you can change the wording, personalize it with photos of you on a set-up or if you need photos drop me an email and I’ll help find photos for you. Then, scoot your personalized page to Deb for approval and then you’re up and running! Our goal is to raise enough money to furnish 40 apartments. Hopefully you can get your friends and family to support you in this endeavor.

Let’s make this year super successful, as next year, with the upcoming election, might be a slow year for garnering donations.

Synergy

This is something that TWC has in abundance! It’s amazing how things just seem to come together, though not without a lot of behind the scenes activity. Teresa and Emma spend a lot of time shopping and pulling for the set-ups, taking inventory at the Bin and making sure we never completely run out of things. It’s a fine-tuned dance and they do a great job.  Teresa shared a story of how she was at Wal-Mart t’other week and one of the employees, who had served her before, was looking for an open register so he could pay for his soda (he was on his break). Teresa told him she’d get it for him so he swiped his employee card and thanked her profusely. What she didn’t realize was that card swipe gave her the employee discount and she got $54 off her total order!

Patty Colvig is our non-perishable gal and when supplies are running low, Teresa scoots her a shopping list and off she goes. She’s got a good eye for bargains and is a familiar face at Smart and Final where she does most of her shopping!

Lorna and Nancy are constantly making new cards and ensuring that we have fresh images. The ‘Inspire’ series, Patty Colvig’s inspiration, has been a best seller, as well as the all the other cards we stock.

Noelle Berman is an angel for doing ALL the printing of the vellum inserts for all our cards. She’s been doing this for us for years and we are beyond appreciative.

Nancy and her merry team of Bin Goddesses never fail to show up for their Saturday morning duties (9 to 10:30 unless it’s a holiday weekend or raining or just too hot). They keep the bin tidy and organized and are the beautiful public face of TWC. Stop on by and say hi if you see them.

Years ago, Sue Forbes went to her dentist and asked for some toothbrushes. He gave her a few, but she kept her hand out until he’d given her dozens…along with floss and toothpaste. Consider asking your dentist if he could help out in this way.

For the past few years Jill Palethorpe has been putting together our interactive holiday gift list so I’ll be asking her soon if she’s willing to help us again this year.

I know I’m forgetting to thank some of you, so please forgive me. Any omissions are my own.

Topanga Elementary School

We’d like to have another school-wide food drive, perhaps near the Thanksgiving holiday. Patty Colvig, who has organized a number of food drives at the school and in her neighborhood in past years, is going to approach the school, but if we have any TWC volunteers who have children at the school, perhaps you’d like to help coordinate this.

Upcoming Project

It’s been over 10 years since we last painted our bin so that’s something we will be organizing in the near future. We’ll keep the river rock wall that Liz Dupuy painted and keep the color scheme much like it is, but we’ll also be organizing new signage.

Messenger Article/Ad

We have a wonderful community newspaper that is offering us special rates for advertising and is happy to print articles we might submit. Let’s make our community profile more visible. This organization is open to all!

Welcome to new volunteer, Jax Tatro. We’re happy to have you on board!

Two important dates to add to your calendar:

November 23: Holiday and All Occasion Cards for Sale at Lin’s House. I’ll send out a reminder closer to the date with some of the gorgeous images we’re using this year.

December 14: Holiday Wrapping at Lin’s house. Each year we get a wish list from the children (with help from parents) at Venice Community Housing’s Transitional Living Center. This includes things the children really want and things they really need.