Giveaways: Then and now
Rain, rain, go away…. at least for the giveaway it did. We had a muggy and mildly warm morning in Central Austin Sunday. In all 22 volunteers came to serve 67 people a fresh meal and hot coffee, along with 109 people who went through our main personal care. giveaway line. Canceling giveaways in March, April, and May of 2020 for due to COVID-19, we had to rethink our efforts to assist people experiencing homelessness the best we can and returned to modified giveaways in June 2020. What a wild ride it has been, and how far we have come in just over a year. Our organization, thanks to vaccines, shifted back to our original giveaway set up: tables, with individual items in bins for folks to choose what they want and need. Since June of 2020 we had been making premade bags with essential personal care items, food and water and handing them out using wagons. We managed to stay connected with some individuals along with meeting new folks going to our second site over at Terrazas Branch Library.
It was nice to be back to a new normal, keeping everyone still masked, limiting volunteers to an essential number of spots, and had a large bottle of hand sanitizer available for everyone to use. Two people served food, two people ran the coffee station, four people helped keep the flow of the line moving well, two donation intake volunteers, nine people running the main line, and a dedicated photographer made easy work of our giveaway. A BIG thank you to all the volunteers: Betsie, Nicole, Mike, Matt, John, Brendon, Kat, Olivia, Linda from Better Together, Dan, Saragh, Gabriel, Emily, Kelly, Carolyn, Alicia, and Leander High school Students: Joshua, Kaissa, Josephine, and Rob.
This will be our third month having a warm meal served. Thank you Better Together ran by Kristin Harris. Thank you Linda and Dan for serving the meal to our clients. It is always a welcomed addition with coffee by Kat. That’s right, Kat is back! Thank you Kat and Olivia for serving up coffee and beverages.
A huge thank you to Leander High School Students Joshua, Kaissa, Josephine, and Rob for all your hard work running a tangible donation and fundraiser for Austin Humanists at Work. Check out our FB live video where we talked with Joshua and Kaissa of Leander High School about their project. Their efforts collected over 1150 in kind donations, and approximately $2700 in monetary donations. Our organization is truly thankful for all their efforts and their amazing community who came together and donated. Thank you!
Our return to the new/ old normal giveaway was very successful. It was wonderful to see volunteers who haven’t been out to giveaways since the pandemic started. We are currently capping the amount of volunteers to 25 which covers all areas of our giveaways. If you are interested in volunteering for the next giveaway please fill our Giveaway Volunteer Interest Form.
Our next giveaway is the fourth Sunday, June 27th, 2021. If you’re interested in volunteering please fill out our Giveaway Volunteer Interest Form and we’ll be in touch with you.
Have a wonderful month… check out our other giveaway images below. Thank you Emily for taking the pictures.
