HoCo Rising blog fundraiser for the homeless

Usually this blog is about eating food.  Well, this post today will focus on people who don’t always have enough food - the homeless. 

Late Wednesday night, we learned about the HoCo Rising blog’s fundraising effort to raise $2,500 to help house four Howard County homeless men.  

The subject of homelessness was fresh on our minds since we just returned from a vacation to California where we saw so many homeless people.  They were old, young, tired, some with pets, some without shoes – being poor didn’t discriminate.  And the one thing they all had in common was being hungry. 

We went to bed thinking of how we could help.  

On Thursday morning we read that HoCo Rising fundraiser had met its goal of raising $2,500.  That means that four homeless men will no longer be living on the streets or in the woods. Even though they met their goal, HoCo Rising said he would still accept donations because there are so many more homeless people to help.

We devised a plan. Bake cookies. Sell them at a cookie and water bottle stand.  Our parents agreed to match whatever amount we raised. 

First we called the Giant in Dorsey Search to ask if we could sell our cookies in front of the store. The manager was very nice but said only organizations were allowed to sell things. But he said if we wrote him a letter, he would try to get us a gift card so we could buy our cookie ingredients.  We plan to  write the letter and donate the gift card to the homeless.

Then we called the Miller Branch Library and spoke to the manger, Susan Stonesifer. She said yes! 

Thursday night, we used our chore money to buy the ingredients and water bottles at Giant, baked 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies and made our signs and banner. 

This morning, we set up our cookie/water stand outside the Miller Branch Library main entrance at 10:00 am when it opened. 

In the three hours we were there, we met the nicest and most generous people. One man dropped a $20 bill into our donation container. We saw neighbors and classmates who contributed like the Baker, Sanidas, Jolles, Demme and Parekh families, Charles’s former basketball coach Mr. Conca, Thomas’s teacher Mrs. Pierantozzi. Plus our Grandma stopped by to donate. And tons of really nice people who we never met before. 

Lots of people asked what we were doing.  So, we told them we were helping a fundraiser started by HoCo Rising blog. We had copies of the HoCo Rising blog post about this fundraiser to hand out.  Some already knew about the fundraiser while others were glad to find out about it.  

In the end, we raised $97. We added $3 more dollars to make it $100.  In total, we donated $200 ($100 from the cookie stand and $100 matching contribution from our parents) to support HoCo Rising’s fundraiser. 

We hope this post will show others how easy it is to raise money for people in need.  Everyone should be able to have food and shelter.  

Thanks HoCo Rising for starting this fundraiser.  You are doing great work. We’d be happy to participate in it again.

If you would like to donate to the fundraiser click here.