I received a letter in the mail from my grandparents the other day, Ruby and Kenny Bryant, that just embodied the spirit of this fundraising campaign. They are in their mid-90s, and don’t have much give, but they believed in the vision for helping empower students/schools/communities and reverse the culture of wasting that we see in so many of these places. They wrote that they wanted to give as much as they could, and so they challenged their Sunday school class to match their own contribution of $20,. . . . and so sure enough, the other folks in their class scrounged up the other $20 in change, etc… and I end up getting a check for $40 that I know people sacrificed something for. . . because they believed in the power that we all have to change the world. Do I still need several thousand dollars . . . sure (actually 3K). . . . and please. . . by all means give – but, an inspired gift really does lift the heart, and I am thankful!!
We only have 2 days left before we have to set our order. If you want to help schools go green, empower students, and help the underprivileged in our communities – all at NO COST to the schools OR the students.
1. A major credit card through our secure contract with PayPal – http://www.greenlockers.org/about/contact-us/ - and then click on the orange “donate now” button.
2. Send a check made out to “greenLockers” to
greenLockers
630 East University Drive
Granger, IN 46530
Here are some benchmarks that would be fun to shoot for:
$120 = adopting an elementary school for 10 years = affecting ~2,000 students
$280 = adopting a middle school for 10 years = affecting ~4,000 students
$520 = adopting a high school for 10 years = affecting ~7,000 students
$920 = adopting a full track through a school system = affecting ~13,000 students
**If you want to get involved in some other way then please go here – http://www.greenlockers.org/get-involved-donations/
Wow – what a year it was last year, and I know I have a post just a few down giving some of the details of the year, but I thought a video recap would be nice. It all started with the county-wide effort to get as many old recycling bins as possible. These 1300 containers were all washed by hand by the Granger Student Ministries missions group from Granger Community Church - THANK YOU!!! We put decals on all of them, and then it was off to the 17 schools (including one in New York) to collect the materials. Over 9000lbs of sorted supplies were gathered and organized for distribution at our warehouse. We partnered with over 30 local non-profit agencies to distribute the supplies to students in need, with some remaining supplies going to India, Mexico, and Columbia. NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE HELP OF MANY VOLUNTEERS, and if you are one of the many that helped out with greenLockers in 2009 – please accept my deepest gratitude for your efforts. Enjoy the video and check out the “get involved link” to find out how you can be a part of the project this year!!
We are now available to be in schools from Elementary schools through college – check out How It Works section on the bottom of the home page and please email me if you would like your school to be a part of the project – looking forward to partnering with you in 2010.
If you would like to be involved in some other way then check out the Get Involved section at the bottom of the home page.
greenLockers 2009 video recap from Ted Bryant on Vimeo.
The joys of not ever knowing how something will turn out is always nerve racking for me, but also knowing that God is always working with you and being on your side is the best feeling of all time! The distribution day was yet very helpful to me to understand what it is like to run a business by yourself. I had a great experience being able to communicate with local organizations, give a helping hand with moving supplies to the vehicles, and got the opportunity to get interviewed by ABC news. I would like to share a personal story that touched my heart while I was working. A young lady Amanda Green from Volinia Outcome School came and the first thing she started to do was tear up when I explained the warehouse tour to her. Her story with the school is kids whose parents are in jail or getting ready to appear in court and the kids are in trouble also and no one to teach them. There is about 75 kids that go to this dirt road, 1 school hallway with only 5 teachers. She said that last year they all had no supplies and the 5 teachers had to use their pocket money to supply all them. Wow how hard, especially when they don’t make a lot of money anyways for teaching. She was so happy and thankful to hear about greenLockers and how much of a blessing it was for her to be here. She was also pregnant and suffering in the heat at the warehouse. I kindly helped her out finding her folders, notebooks, and getting ALL the loose leaf paper together for her in the boxes while she went through the novels. God did such a breath taking moment for me and I just realized how amazing this young pregnant lady was for loving her job even through it’s with kids that don’t ever was to learn or be at school. She has been there 6 years and never wasn’t to leave she claims. I helped her put all the boxes into her car and gave her a big hug and told her how great of a person she was. When she took off all I could say out loud was “God you are so awesome and amazing”! I honestly said it about 6-7 times around the warehouse.
Well it goes a little like this: A Crazy Summer for an Internship!!
Top 10 internship moments-
Learned-
*How to make all different types of excel spreadsheets, word documents, and blog posts.
*How to design map layouts of the warehouse for distribution day
*How to make a media alert and newsletter
*How to take the role of managing and being in charge of an organization/company. This is a good way to understand how much time is put into things.
9. Being able to allow God to work through me and give me the strength and ability to finish the work when at times I was stressed out with so much to do outside of this internship.
10. Having all of my internship work all over the house and my mom always trying to tell me to pick it up and put it in my room. I think I had internship work in almost every room in my house.
I (Lindsey Hyduk-intern for Ted) was able to take charge by myself with a local Catholic grade school in South Bend this past school year and this was Holy Family. Here is exactly what only one school can do for greenLockers: Holy Family donated almost anything you could think of and even the teachers donated things of theirs that they didn’t need any more like helping aids for the children. I worked with Debbie and she was so great and helpful to this pick up service I did today and she told me that they would love to keep up the donating process for the future and that was so encouraging to hear!!! Holy Family was a big success to our “distribution day” and to hear from Debbie that the children were so involved in the donating process was such an amazing blessing from God. To be able to hear that you’re whole school to effect into this process with joy and fun is great. I would like to personally thank Debbie for such a great effort that she put into our locker clean our days! After I was able to get everything into my car, which was FULLY LOADED!!! The final stop was to the warehouse to drop the bins off.
I get the credit, and yet. . . . I feel like I am the least deserving. greenLockers as a movement is not powered by me, but by countless individuals that decided to be a part of equipping students. . . moving the world forward. Here are some of these individuals that have made major contributions in just the past 2 weeks!
1. Heather – one of my students at Notre Dame who is paving a way for me to speak tonight to the service commissioners of the ND dorms as well as to the ND Circle K club members later on this month.
2. Theresa (an accounting manager) from Dowagiac, MI – who called up a few weeks ago wanting to donate around 200 binders (in about 20 more white bags that you see in the picture) from her work that was going out of business.
3. Verna Davis from South Bend who wanted to donate all of the slightly-used crayons that she had been collecting from her grandchildren over the years (the shoebox in the picture above)
4. Barb from South bend who stopped by Bethel and dropped off some more recylcing bins from a few neighbors (above in picture)
5. Richard in Granger who is wanting to organize a neighborhood collection drive for recyling bins AND school supplies – – be tuning in if you are a resident of Wedgewood in Granger
6. Dennis from Holy Family grade school in South Bend – he wants in. . . one of many people serving in area schools that are bringing their schools on board!
5. Colin – V.P. of Penn’s NHS – he wants NHS at Penn to be in too. . . . just a few students at Penn!!! – should be an amazing partnership
I am amazed and excited about the power of greenLockers to help change the lives of hundreds if not thousands of students THIS YEAR – those that receive AND those that give. It is March, which means less than 3 months until locker clean-out!!! I am grateful for everyone who is supporting greenLockers – we are already gearing up for what should be an amazing Spring!!
So, I decided this morning would be a good time to buy my first ever newspaper with cash from Martin’s. . . . since I was told that the article about greenLockers may be in there today. Sure enough. . . FRONT PAGE of the Local section – I was excited!!
I thought that Jeff Parrott wrote a great article – well organized, and with all the essential information, so my thanks to him :).
Now, we will see what happens this week – I hope that I can get some more play on some local radio stations, as well as TV. I hope to get at least 1,000 bins on this coming Sat., but what really matters is whatever God has in mind (so, I am preparing for 10x that much if necessary).
I just checked the 10-day forecast for Sat. 31st. . . . 29 degrees and partly sunny. Hey, that is not too bad – everybody come on out and help greenLockers prepare to help hundreds/thousands of kids this year – bring your bins – (THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAN!!!) – let’s see how many we can get!!
greenLockers
630 E. University Dr.
Granger, IN 46530
FAX: 574.807.7617
Email: ted@greenlockers.org
Please feel free to contact us with any comments, questions or suggestions that you might have.