Rain, rain and more rain. Flood warnings up all around. Think I will stay in where it is dry. I did wimp out and turned the A/C back on. It was so humid and hot in the house without it. Kathy was struggling to breathe and both of us had trouble sleeping last night – I think because of the heat and humidity. I have felt cold this afternoon with the air on. Guess I am hard to please.
Have spent all day washing blankets. I got 120 of them as they came in a box of 24 and I needed 100. I can do 5 at a time in my washer. When I take them out of the dryer I have to use a slightly damp cloth to wipe out the dryer of the lint balls. I think I am about halfway done. Good time I have lots of time before they will be needed. Wonder what my water bill will be this month with 24 extra loads of laundry?
Have spent the rest of the day finding bulk suppliers for the last two big items which are the hoodies and sweat pants. I found one for the hoodies and ordered them. They are coming from China and with the war and fuel situation I pray the items I ordered will arrive. Shipping costs were high but even lots more if I had them come by air. Most of the bulk items I got were made in China and I am satisfied with the quality so took a chance on the hoodies.
I think I finally found a supplier of sweat pants for the men at a price of under $10 a pair. It is from a bulk suppliers that mainly sells to institutions but also will accept a nonprofit. I have to fill out an application to become a customer and if accepted can order sweat pants for about $9.00 a pair including shipping. I will get that filled out and returned to them and see what happens.
If that doesn’t work I found a supplier that only sells to prisons and I can check and see if the Detention Center will order them for me and I reimburse them.
Did some number crunching on the cost of the Go Bags and if Love in Action has to pay for everything in the bag I have the cost down to around $35 a bag. I am exploring grants to write and needed the exact cost of a bag. That cost gets offset with donations of goods.
Found a couple of grants that sound like Love in Action might be a match for them. I need to do some more investigating to understand the ramifications of accepting a grant and what that means to fundraising responsibilities. Since I am a 501(c)3 there are requirements I need to pay attention to. I really didn’t think we would ever get big enough to need grants. However, if the Go Bags go out at the rate of over 100 a month, I think we might need some grants to help offset the cost. My donors are incredibly generous but with the way the economy is, I don’t want them to hurt themselves by giving too much.
I got a very generous check in the mail today from a new donor. She wrote the nicest letter with it. She mentioned she liked how we treat the employees at the Detention Center as well as the Detainees with dignity and respect. Her check funded the hoodie order with funds left over. People are so incredibly generous.
Went to the bank and deposited a check. I need to make another trip and deposit two more that I got today. I will wait till the rain stops though. Went to the post office to check my new PO Box for Love in Action and found two checks waiting for me. That made the trip to the post office fun! I also stopped and dropped off a check for my water bill.
It has been a quiet day at home for the most part. It feels good to have the laundry to do as it feels like I am getting something done. I went down the rabbit hole of sweat pants providers for a long time. Most of the sweat pants are sold with draw strings and I can’t use those or pull the strings out and call it good. I persisted and hope I found a supplier.
When it stops raining I need to help Kathy take two car fulls of cardboard to the recycling bins. I don’t think it will all fit in Kathy’s car alone. I still have nine more boxes in the living room that might have to sit for a bit. I did order some more totes so maybe when those come in I can get rid of the boxes. Not sure where I will put the totes though. Good news is I hope to have a storage place lined up soon and can move things out of the house.
My plan is to only keep the full Go Bags at the house and keep all the bits and pieces at the storage place. The place also has a nice work area for future work days. If we get to use it, we will transfer things to it on our work days. The volunteers will pick up the laundry things here, wash them up and then we will take them to the new storage space. Hoping we can assemble the bags in the new space. That will make it much easier. I will find out the 16th if it is a go.
I haven’t seen it rain for several days in a row for a long time. We got lucky and didn’t get 11 inches like they did in western KS. Most of the time the rain came straight down. This afternoon it is blowing a bit and going a bit sideways. Grateful I don’t have to get out in it.
No plans for tomorrow. I may run down to Matfield Green Saturday. They are having an event I would like to go to. I always think it is a good idea to go until it is time to go and then most of the time I change my mind and stay home. We shall see what happens this time.
Next week is full of empty space. I am getting my Covid and flu shots on Monday. Have lots of time to recover if I have a reaction. Last year I didn’t have one so hoping that will be the case this year too.
This has been a mental busy day for me. Working on the plans for each of the work days in addition to searching for cheap sweat pants. I need a written plan for each of the work days as a starting point. I’m sure after each work day I will adjust the following work days tasks of things to do. It is hard to know how long it will take people to sort 100 pair of T-shirts into sizes and cut off tags. How long will it take to open 75 toiletry bags and remove three things and add several things? We shall see what happens! Good news is I have lots of time until December 1, even with being gone for 16 days of that time.
Grateful for several generous donations today, grateful for the A/C and how quickly it removed the humidity from the house, and grateful I am almost halfway done washing blankets.