What happens to what you donate

Seriously, you don’t want it any more and you hope it goes to good use… but once it is out of your house, garage, storage unit – where does it go?

Find out before you donate. When I worked at LAMP Community, someone donated 200 boxes of Calgone Bubble bath. Wonderful, if there were a single bathtub anywhere on skid row or one of the shelters or apartments LAMP was associated with.

I am a big fan of The Goodwill. I did not think I would be once I let the baby crawl around in white pants that came up black a few moments later… but my teenager spent all of $10 and bought two formal dresses. One was a Halloween costume and the other went to Winter Formal.

Do ask your charity of choice if they share donations with other orgs that can put them to good use.

Discover that some places, like Goodwill have a Thrift store Model and others, like MEND have a department store model.  Both are great and I invite you to check both out. It will also give you a good idea of where your donations should go. Another favorite of mine is Out of the Closet Thrift Stores.

@dodgers Job Fair!

Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez in partnership with local elected officials and the Los Angeles Dodgers will host the 17th Annual Community Job Fair on Saturday, March 10, 2012 from 10:00 am-1:00 pm at the Dodger Stadium (1000 Elysian Park Avenue, LA CA 90012)

Employers ranging from small restaurants, private businesses, corporations and the Los Angeles Dodgers, will be on-hand to hire new employees.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

LA Dodger Stadium

1000 Elysian Park Avenue

Los Angeles, CA 90012

FREE Admission and Parking

Please enter through Elysian Park Ave./Stadium Way entrance

* Additionally, if you need help with your resume or interview skills, attend a workshop to prepare you to be the best candidate in your field.

Workshops available:

January 28th, 2012

9:30am – 12:30pm

@ Roosevelt High School

To RSVP email rsvproosevelt

February 4th, 2012

9:30am – 12:30pm

@ Santee Education Complex

To RSVP email rsvpsantee

February 11th, 2012

9:30am – 12:30pm

@ Miguel Contreras Learning Complex

To RSVP email rsvpmclc

For more information you can visit LACommunityJobFair.com or call our office at (213) 620-4646.

MEND’s Oscar Party: I want to go and dress up as a movie character #fb

@mendpoverty1

MEND  invites you to join us for our

Oscar Night® America Los Angeles Gala

Celebrating the 84th Annual Academy Awards®

Globe Theatre – Universal Studios

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Honoring: Universal Studios Hollywood Discover A Star Foundation

UNIDOS, A Warner Bros. Business Resource Group

4:00 p.m. Red Carpet Arrivals, Cocktails, Hors D’oeuvres and Silent Auction

5:30 p.m. Academy Awards® Telecast

6:30 p.m. Gourmet Dinner by Wolfgang Puck Catering

Evening includes celebrity guests, live auction, predict the winners

and Oscar® trivia contest

Attire – Red Carpet Appropriate or as Your Favorite Movie Star

————————————————————————-

tickets are available here: https://ssl4.westserver.net/mendpoverty.org/SECURE/oscar.php

Who wants to come with me?

En Espanol – foodstamps

Appliqué Para Estampillas de Comida

Sobre este sitio La intención de nuestro sitio de la red es de proveer un recurso electrónico para la comunidad latina en su propia lengua. En el proceso de crear este recurso, nos estamos creando un idioma para hablar de las estampillas de comida y una cultura de promoción y colaboración. Haga clic aquí para aprender más sobre nuestra discusión del idioma. Hay tres tipos de público potencial para esta página Web: clientes y clientes potenciales que están buscando información, los promotores y las promotoras que ya son expertos en promoción, los promotores potenciales, lideres comunitarios y los aliados de la comunidad latina que les interesa aprender mas sobre la promoción de las estampillas de comida. Sobre esta Colaboración Este sitio de la red es una colaboración de los asociados del Comité de la Dirección, la Asociación de Bancos de Comida en California (CAFB) y el Centro del Congreso Contra el Hambre (CHC). El desarrollo del www.misalimentos.org fue parte de la tarea de Katherine Moos en su asignación de seis meses de trabajo en la CAFB como parte del Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship. Para desarrollar un sitio en español, Katherine continua la tarea de Anyu Fang, quien creó el sitio eninglés www.myfoodstamps.org como parte de su tarea de Emerson Hunger Fellowship en 2006-2007.

testing

Visibly homeless? Move on

@Ntl_Homeless: More legislation that could potentially deny those who are visibly homeless from resting in public spaces: http://ow.ly/8Dj5T
Shared via TweetCaster

Do you care that they are dead, because they were homeless

James McGillivray, 50; Lloyd ‘Jimmy’ Middaugh, 42; and Paulus ‘Dutch’ Smit, 57 . Killed at the hands of another human being, these men were easy prey. Housing status, financial situation. married, widowed, gay or straight – who cares. What matters is that someone thinks it is okay to hunt and kill people based on their homeless status.

What is up with this?

Who among you secretly sighed and thought “There is  one less person who will be holding up a sign at a freeway off ramp!!”

Did you wonder privately or with friends about “Why don’t they just get a job and pay rent like the rest of us?”.

It is so easy to hate the poor and despise the homeless. Part of it is fear that we could become one of them. Part of it is that we really are annoyed that when we scrape by for food and gas and to keep our own families housed, people just ask for what we worked for – and to boot – we feel like all those taxes are going to them. The president and governors are threatening social security and Children’s Education – not threatening to cut services to the homeless and force the SSI checks to be spent on housing and food and basic needs. — the fact is that massive cuts for the homeless have already happened and you just don’t know about it because there isn’t a really great PR person alerting you to this fact. Also, you may not care. 

But people are people, no one came to life on their own, there was a mother and father involved at some point, and every last one of these men were little boys just 13 thousand days ago. 

The hard part of being a social worker #fb

 The hard part of being a social worker is not being able to be the Solution Provider.

You are homeless, and I don’t have a home to put you in.

You’re in mental strife, but all the county approved therapists are booked. Please don’t kill yourself before I can find you a professional to talk to. I can call the PET (Psychiatric Emergency Team) and have them come meet us in my office. It is 10:00 am, we can expect them to come about 4:30pm

You are telling me you want to kill your daughter in law, that you have a plan and you don’t know when, but it is going to go down. But, you won’t tell this to the PET team, you won’t write it down, I can’t do anything with this information, and we don’t offer anger management classes, and did I mention that all the county approved therapists are booked? – also, I am not feeling too good about being confined in a small space with you right now. Please don’t notice as I slide the scissors and other objects into my desk drawer and fondle the panic button.

I can see that your tooth is broken, and I smell the rot from lack of dental care. But I don’t know anywhere that provides free or low cost dental care in this area.

Alas, what exactly do I do all day? What do I produce? What is my benefit to society?

I feel impotent. That smoke is the smell of me burning out.  

MEND.pr.meeting

“how can you be so chill and laid back”? #fb

This is the best question I have heard all day – possibly all year! I am calm in real life because I vent on-line. When I have a homeless family who is going to sleep in their car in my parking lot because there are no shelter beds available, when someone tells me they have a highschool diploma but want to get a GED also, when I hear that they can’t let their kids be with the father because they are concerned for their safety;unless mom needs a trip to Vegas with her new boyfriend, when a good friend tells me she thinks the baby’s party had nothing to do with Darla, when I am sneaking off during said party to puke my guts out, and usually I calmly smile through it all….it is because I can tell you all about it here. Sorry for being full blown out of control on line- but I have appearances to keep up in real time