Mittens for Detroit

Friends,

It's Sunday night, and it's been a week for sure. Thank you for all of the support and for your patience. I'll need your patience just a little longer.... I'm having hip replacement surgery (great timing, right?) on Monday and will be out for a week or so. I'll be checking in, but honestly I'll be focusing on healing quickly. I have someone checking in on our page to let me know if there's anything that can't wait.

What can you do for Mittens for Detroit and me right now? Please step up and don't let the momentum die on this terrible situation. We are getting great response on our "Disaster Relief" Giving Page (https://bit.ly/HelpMittySaveHisMittens) and a lot of sharing of our posts. While I'm out next week, will you be an Ambassador for Mittens for Detroit and keep this going? Please tell your friends and family.

If you are a Big Sort volunteer, tell your team what happened. If you are a Community Collection Partner, think about what you can do now to let people know you support us. If you are a Distribution Partner, tell your team and your board about what has happened, as it might have a big impact on our ability to get mittens and gloves to you this month. Whatever our relationship is, please help me this week by being great Ambassadors. Thank you so much! See you later this week! ~ Wendy, MFD Executive Director

It's been a long week, and we want to make sure that folks are caught up on what's happened at Mittens for Detroit. On June 26th, a pipe burst in the ceiling about our office, causing greasy water to fall like rain and flood the office. The short story is that it took 5 days to go through all of the THOUSANDS of pairs of soaking wet mittens and gloves trying to salvage that were not damaged. Over the five days working in the basement, about 30 volunteers helped this heartbreaking and difficult task. The hall is now empty, the small number of "good" pairs are counted and box, and the office is closed for repairs until August.

Now is the time to move on. We have had a lot of wonderful support from local news stations and so many of our community friends. We are not sure where we go from here, but we have a few ideas. We do not want this to be how 16+ years of warming the hands and hearts of more than 375,000 people in need ends. We are asking for your help. Please don't send mittens and gloves now, as there is nowhere to receive them. Hold off on that until August.

In the meantime, we need your help to get back on our feet again. Right now we need funds to start purchasing thousands of pairs to replace the lost ones. In the summer we are usually getting the pairs that are in the office boxed up and ready for delivery in September. You can help with this by donating to our "disaster relief" giving page - the link is https://bit.ly/HelpMittySaveHisMittens

To read about the emergency and watch the news reports, please click here:
https://conta.cc/4y4nSXl

Thank you for your support. We'll have a plan so that everyone who wants to help can lend a hand... look for that in a week or so. Thank you for your support. This is a really sad and heartbreaking time for all of us involved with Mittens for Detroit.

Day 5 in the Basement Update

Thankfully Wednesday was the last day we need to be down in the basement. With the help of a quite a few volunteers from Ally and Bedrock, the last of the salvaged pairs were sorted, counted, and packed in temporary boxes. We were able to do a mini Big Sort, and we came up with the numbers of pairs that we have salvaged. I have to say that I'm completely stunned on how many we have lost now that we hit the end of the cleanup.

The office is empty of gloves, and the salvaged pairs are in a separate room next door. Done.

What was especially nice yesterday was that I hit the jackpot on seeing a great many of building engineers yesterday that I haven't seen in a long time. It was particularly fun to see Mike and see pictures of his now 10 year old kid. The people from Bedrock were all so great through this whole mess. Looking for solutions, with all of them being concerned at how this will impact the people of Detroit who rely on Mittens for Detroit.

The biggest shout out is to Joyce Wine, the building manager at our Bedrock building at the First National Building. Joyce was considerate, compassionate and supportive (including spending some time sorting gloves) all week. I am so grateful for that. Thanks, Joyce!

Now we move into the recovery of our operations phase. The office will be closed for a month for repairs, and I will be working from home. Time to do some fast outreach to our followers and community. Some of you have been sharing our posts and WOW that's great! If you can keep being good Ambassadors for Mittens for Detroit, we can make it through this. I'll be sharing some fun ideas of what you can do this summer to help raise funds for new mittens and gloves.

Thank you for all your help during this really challenging week. For those who have donated, THANK YOU! I haven't had time to do thank yous and it will take a bit. Just know that I'm seeing them and you are so appreciated! ~ Wendy, MFD Executive Director