adopt-a-shelter

Click for Genesis House Wish List AAs1

I'm a little late getting it up, but my annual charity thing is happening again, and again I call upon the charity of MGoReaders to help us throw a party for and give gifts to kids spending the season in a homeless shelter.

Adopt-a-Shelter is a one-day event at two Detroit shelters where we give the clients a Christmas party and allow the parents to "shop" for donated gifts worth $10 to $20.

Activities for the kids include a pizza party, Santa Claus, a teen game room, face-painting, artwork and dancing. Most of the activities are a diversion for the kids while their parents…

Shop in a gift room filled with donated, unwrapped gifts. The parents can each select a certain number of gifts for themselves and their family members (this is why they have to be unwrapped). Anything left over goes to the shelters—every year we have a ton left over, and every year they've managed to give it all away in a few months after we leave.

The sites for the parties will be Booth Evangeline (Amazon Wish List) on Saturday, December 8, and Genesis II House (Amazon Wish List) this Saturday, December 1. Mitch Albom's organization Time to Help is again throwing the larger Booth party, and Mitch will be there; the shelter has about 150 current clients, about half of whom are kids. Genesis House has about 50 women and 17 children; they recently moved to a new building so they're in dire need of a lot of donated furniture, particularly dressers/anything that can be used in lieu of such (students: your old dorm stuff is perfect).

What You Can Do

Help stock the gift room, donate furniture, and volunteer. See the jump for the Details.