Handbags of Hope

Hi ladies! Diane is helping organize a little charity work at her office and I thought I'd pass this along to all of you in case you have any gently used purses you would like to donate.

SEE THE BELOW EMAIL FROM DIANE......

I was reading my local paper the other night and came across an article
about "Handbags of Hope". It's an organization a local woman started to
provide purses to the women at local shelters (many of the women who
receive them are victims of domestic violence). I spoke with our
Community Relations Chairperson - Joe Mara , and we agreed that this
sounds like a great cause to lend a hand to.

In a nut shell we are looking for volunteers to bring in gently used
handbags. You can fill it yourself with the suggested 10 essential items
(listed below) or bring it in empty and we will also collect the
essentials in order to fill them. I exchanged emails with the
organization and right now they have about 400 purses on hand that they
are filling with the hopes of having 1,100 purses ready to go by the
Mothers Day distribution. So anything we can collect would help them
out! I would like to start doing this NOW and have our donations ready
to drop off by mid April.

For those of you that want to check out their  website:
http://handbagsofhope.webs.com/

And for those of you that don't have time to go to the website but want
a quick overview , keep reading:

WELCOME TO HANDBAGS OF HOPE

Handbags of Hope  believes a woman's handbag is a very important
personal possession. We carry a small world in there , as well as run
our world from it.  But what happens when you run in the middle of the
night ? Only the clothes on your back and child in your arms. Many of
the women who receive our handbags are victims of Domestic Violence.

Our concept is simple, we ask women to take a gently used handbag and
fill it with 10 essential items.

Handbags are delivered twice a year, Mother's day and Christmas.

We deliver to 16 shelters and 6 Teen Programs. With new requests from
programs coming in weekly.
Handbags of Hope relies on 90% donations of handbags, wallets, and
filler items.
Together we can continue to give gifts of Beauty & Empowerment.
 
Creating your Handbag
We attempt to make each Handbag as uniform as possible. We've decided on
10 essential items for each handbag we ask you to include. After these
items you can add what you like. Please no full size toiletries, while
their nice, they're not practical for Shelter situations.

10 Essential Items:

1.      Hairbrush
2.      Wallet
3.      Manicure set
4.      Lip balm
5.      Hand lotion
6.      Memo pad
7.      Tissues
8.      Travel size shampoo/body wash
9.      Travel size deodorant
10.  Compact mirror
Other Ideas, sunglasses, make-up, magazines, candy, gum, nail polish
  
Diane Myers
Great Lakes Region
Symantec Corporation
www.symantec.com