World Vision

Every Wednesday, my mom volunteers at an organization called World Vision. World Vision is a huge Christian-based charity that does many national and international programs. Among these are the Sponsor a Child program, the 30 hour famine (youth), disaster relief, and Gifts-in-Kind.

Gifts-in-Kind has two distribution centers in the country - one in Denver, and one in Sewickley (near Pittsburgh...about 30 minutes away from me!) My mom volunteers at this distribution center, where they receive TONS of corporate donations.

This year, they (sadly) sorted thousands of shirts that proclaimed "Pittsburgh Steelers: Superbowl Champions" [worth about $2 million] These are then sent to developing countries to people in need. But it's more than just losing sports teams (don't worry it's not just the Steelers, they receive regular donations from the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB), there are also major corporate donations. For instance, now at World Vision:

..there are pallets and pallets of donated clothing from Wal Mart. They also sort books, medical supplies, shoes, etc! 

Everything has to go from the above picture to this:

So that it can get properly distributed around the world :)

But my mom's group on Wednesday does my favorite: Knits for Kids, which is when people make handmade sweaters for children in need and then send them in. Guideposts, a Christian magazine, started this, but were overwhelmed by the vast amounts of donations they received, so now WV handles the donations. Here are some of the sweaters we unpacked, sorted, and re-packaged so they can be distributed to needy kids:

These are some of the cutest ones! (Obviously, not all are this nice.) But we receive so many...and quite a few are from Wisconsin. Which makes me think I might learn how knit to face the cold winters!