07/01/2020
Good morning OHO family. We come to you hoping you are healthy and safe and that you are receiving resources needed to help you during this pandemic. We wanted to connect with you to let you know the current state of OHO collections and distributions.
We had hopes of being able to do a back to school give away this year and have received several donations in effort to prepare for that. Current regulations have prevented us from being able to host a clothing give away as there is no way to do it safely and allow you all to come together in our traditional give away form. We've also discussed alternate ways to host the clothing give aways...time slots, limited numbers, item limits, none of which seem feasible because we don't have a permanent set up in which to stagger these times through the week.
After the latest numbers of increasing cases has come to light and the new order to wear masks in all public places, we are unsure when we are even going to be allowed to set up again. We've made the difficult decision to take the limited inventory we have and donate it to local organizations that can distribute on a case by case basis. These locations are equipped to meet one on one with families and individuals as needed where we are not. We will NOT be donating these items to organizations who choose to sell them at discounted pricing. We choose to give them to school resource centers, church clothing banks, domestic abuse help centers, fostar care agencies and community organizations that will offer them to those in need and not with profit in mind.
We could hold onto them while we wait for this virus to die down or until we get the go from the state, but it seems wasteful to keep them in storage here when people could be using them in the months to come. For now, we will be stop receiving donations and focus on getting items to those who we have been working with first, then determining how best to distribute the rest of our donations to reach the families that need them.
We miss you.
We pray for you.
We worry about you and your kids.
We continue to donate Essential Matters bags to foster and adoptive families as needed during this time. Please, keep yourselves and your families safe! We love you so much and will let you know as soon as things change.
