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Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
The NCWW Board of Directors has decided to once again give back to our communities. Knowing that many members are doing so by actively working with various charities, we have decided to support our membership by giving to those charities
Please respond with the charities you are working with. The Board will review the list and distribute the funds
Thanks for all you do
 

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
I assume they are woodworking ORGANIZATIONS
Steve, They would not have to be organizations involved in woodworking, but I can see where our members would tend to lend a hand to an organization that can use one of their skills
For instance, Richard Cox is deeply involved in SHP-BAA (Sleep in Heavenly Peace - Bunks across America) where volunteers get together to build bunk beds for needy children.
Plus I know that many of our members work hard for Toys for Tots and others at Habitat for Humanity

However if we had a member giving their time and expertise to a free mental health clinic during these rough times, we would consider that also.

Right now, food banks need all the help they can get.
During the Boards discussion we earmarked a portion of these funds to go to food banks - It would be great to give to a local food bank in which one of our members is donating their time

I cannot think of a more important task right now. We all need to help each other pull ourselves up

Plus this is good marketing - We have to go back to our suppliers next year and ask for more raffle gifts. They need to see the positive things we are doing with the funds created by their donations
 

Dee2

Board of Directors, Vice President
Gene
Staff member
Corporate Member
I've (re)donated collected stuffed animals to the local Sherriff's office for use in domestic abuse calls for many years. I'm sure they give the excess to the hospital. I started off with the abuse/shelter group but overwhelmed them with the volume of bears. Either family shelters or sheriffs association are worth consideration, IMHO.

Given our relocation, a friend has asked to continue the stuffed animal collection in Pitt County.
 

ScottM

Scott
Staff member
Corporate Member
At last count NC is divided into 5 Food Bank districts. I know because I run a food bank out of my church and we are in the Central & Eastern NC district. Money is not our agency issue but Covid has resulted in reduced supplies and loss of volunteers. I can tell you that in my district alone there are 100's of small food banks or pantries. If you are intent to donate to food bank I would consider "Feeding the Carolinas" which covers all of NC and SC.

I also volunteer with Helpful Hands and Hearts and we build handicap ramp for people over 60 and can't afford a ramp in Warren, Halifax and Northampton counties. Helpful Hands and Hearts - Older Adult Resources Lake Gaston NC & VA". Materials are purchased with donations and grant money. The labor is provided by volunteers. I believe we have built like 180 ramps over the last 5-6 years. They are not fancy but functional. The one below took us 5 hours. This one was on a nice house. Some of the ramps of this size double the value of houses we build them on.
ramp.jpg
 
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KenOfCary

Ken
Staff member
Corporate Member
Glad Scott knows some details and shared them about the food bank organizations in NC, the board was struggling to find a way to reach banks in the entire state.

Food banks are directly helping those in need during the pandemic and into the future.

I'm on the Board of Plenty! the local food bank in Floyd County, VA. They have also suffered from a loss of volunteers. Fortunately, when the older volunteers left we got some younger ones from local colleges volunteer. The volume of people they serve has gone up by at least 50% since the pandemic started.
 

dwminnich

New User
Dave
As Scott mentioned, Feeding the Carolinas is an organization comprised of food banks in NC and SC. This page from their website lists the member food banks: Feeding the Carolinas » Locations. There are six in NC, and I have personal knowledge of two of those. When we lived in Hillsborough, I volunteered with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern NC (FBCENC). FBCENC has five branches and provides service to fully a third of the counties in NC. I'm currently plugged in at MANNA (Mountain Area Nutritional Needs Alliance) in Asheville, which serves 16 counties in the western part of the state. Both of these are worthy of support, and I'm sure the others are as well.

I frequently get asked the difference between a food bank and a food pantry... a food bank is a warehouse/distributor that gathers, packages, and distributes food to a network of front-line partner agencies which might include soup kitchens, school- and church-based programs, senior programs, food pantries, and many more. In NC, those thousands of front-line agencies typically get their food for free or very reduced cost from one of the six foodbanks in the state, whichever serves their county. The agencies distribute the food to their clients, and there are far too many. In western NC, Feeding America (a national umbrella organization of foodbanks) estimates that 1 in 4 children and 1 in 6 adults suffer from food insecurity or hunger.

As others have said, there has been a significant hit to volunteers during covid. At MANNA, the pre-existing pool of volunteers included large numbers of folks who fell into high-risk groups (primarily older, retired folks). Overnight, many of those folks no longer felt safe/able to continue. We were lucky that many folks whose normal work/school schedule was disrupted by covid answered the call to fill that volunteer gap, and through the spring and summer we had lots of new volunteers step up. Recently, as schools have resumed it has become tougher again to find sufficient volunteers. If you've got the time, your local food bank can certainly use you. <steps off soapbox>
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
What I see here is confirmation why I moved to NC. I went looking for a org that was helping the local community where I was in MD. I visited most of the churches. Went on-line. They wanted money to finance foreign evangelical's trips, but no one was helping our neighbors. So gave to Habitat again.
 

SteveColes

Steve
Corporate Member
Steve, They would not have to be organizations involved in woodworking, but I can see where our members would tend to lend a hand to an organization that can use one of their skills
For instance, Richard Cox is deeply involved in SHP-BAA (Sleep in Heavenly Peace - Bunks across America) where volunteers get together to build bunk beds for needy children.
Plus I know that many of our members work hard for Toys for Tots and others at Habitat for Humanity

However if we had a member giving their time and expertise to a free mental health clinic during these rough times, we would consider that also.


During the Boards discussion we earmarked a portion of these funds to go to food banks - It would be great to give to a local food bank in which one of our members is donating their time

I cannot think of a more important task right now. We all need to help each other pull ourselves up

Plus this is good marketing - We have to go back to our suppliers next year and ask for more raffle gifts. They need to see the positive things we are doing with the funds created by their donations
Thanks that is what i expected.
 

Johnson

New User
AD
https://www.operationresolute.org/

Joel McDaniel is doing wonderful work here. I have worked with this organization for a number of years. I help facilitate hunting trips and prepare the land (hanging stands, cutting shooting lanes, etc). The focus of this group is on the Special Warfare community and their families. The deployment schedule for the SF community is insane. Operation Resolute takes care of the operators and their families. The father/son/daughter hunts are special to say the least. It allows these guys to take their kids into the woods on private land and hunt together on the one opportunity that they get in a given year.

They are currently raising money to purchase 400 acres out east so that they can run their ministry and events year round.
 

23tony

New User
Tony
I know there's only so much to go around, but may I add volunteer fire departments?

I'm a member of one and we've been hard hit because a large part of our budget comes from two annual fund-raisers that we've had to cancel due to the virus this year. The bigger "city" departments in our county aren't doing as bad, but the rural volunteer ones are hurting. Likely the same all over the state.
 

Mike Davis

Mike
Corporate Member
We are a charity.
Why don't we do more of the work that our charter requires us to do?
We should be developing woodworking educational opportunities.
Minorities and underprivileged would be a great place to start.
?A free school?
 

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
We are a charity.
Why don't we do more of the work that our charter requires us to do?
We should be developing woodworking educational opportunities.
Minorities and underprivileged would be a great place to start.
?A free school?
Mike, that is a long term goal. Our thought process was what can we do right now to lessen the impact Covid is having on our society plus give a pat on the back to our members that are already giving back. Plus we had to consider what we could get done in a timely fashion.
I share your vision and hopefully we can get an engaged team together.
 

smallboat

smallboat
Corporate Member
Are we mostly interested in groups that serve statewide or would a group with a regional (Triad) focus qualify?
 

Berta

Berta
Corporate Member
My honest opinion is to satisfy both charitable works AND woodworking by possibly finding or starting an organization similar to the ramp building that Scott M mentioned. Especially since we are not able to do outreach events right now.
 

Jim M.

Woody
Corporate Member
I'd like to shine a light on a great program down in Wilmington. Kids Making It is an awesome program and could always use some financial support as well as some time and talent from experienced woodworkers.

From their site:
Kids Making It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit youth woodworking program that teaches valuable vocational, entrepreneurial and life skills to at-risk, low income and disadvantaged youth. Our goal for every student we serve is for them to stay in school, stay out of trouble, and transition successfully into either the workplace or college.

 

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