Love 4 Vets

Kyra Reinstein, Natalie Frey, Sophia LoRicco

About Us -

We are three best friends who decided to take this class to find ways to make a difference in our community! Natalie Frey (right), Kyra Reinstein (middle), and Sophia LoRicco (left). Sophia's brother goes to school at West Point Army School, Kyra's grandfather was a WWII Veteran. This issue hits close to home for us and we are grateful for the opportunity to change the lives of those who have sacrificed it for our beautiful country.

1. The Issue/Community Need -`````

Our mission is to create support and raise awareness for our troops. In this country our army goes above and beyond to protect our nation and make sure that everyone who lives here has freedom and is safe. There are veterans in our community who served our country in the past, and are now living in poverty. We decided to focus on supporting homeless veterans in Worcester. Now it is our chance to support them and their families, and provide them with goods that they need.

2. Community Partnership - The organization we have choose to partner with is Veterans Inc. Veterans Inc is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping veterans and their families in Massachusetts. Their main purpose is to help and give veterans the tools they need to rebuild their life. Not just right now but for the future. They believe that many veterans joined the military at a very young age. At this age they had yet to build the skills that could be useful in civilian jobs. Without these essential skills, it increases the risk for homelessness and joblessness. They have helped more than 80,000 veterans since 1990. Veterans Inc. whose success rate (85%) is constantly increasing is set on giving back to the men and women who where there for us when we needed them.

3. Action Plan -

We have already partnered with a homeless shelter for Veterans (Veterans Inc. in Worcester MA). Our first fundraiser will be happening on the professional day, November 8th, right before Veteran's Day. Our goal is to collect items from teachers (bottled water, canned goods, socks, and winter clothing items). We will also be accepting cash donations! In addition to our Veteran's day weekend fundraiser, we will be doing more fundraisers around the Holidays. Also, we will be going down to the Placentino School with a veteran from our partnership organization to educate students about the community need. We will also be asking them to write them letters to make veterans' holiday season a little brighter.

4. Learning -

So far throughout this project, we have learned more about just how many veterans in our local community are living in poverty. We have had some bumps in our road with connecting with our partnered organization as well as getting permission for fundraisers, but we are excited with the progress we have made. Our first fundraiser is scheduled and we can't wait!!

Our success so far!

Our fundraiser on November 8th went great! We were able to collect many items from the teachers on their professional day. Along with all the items we collected we were also able to collect about $300 in cash donations. We went to Ocean State Job Lot and bought 12 blankets, 20 gloves, and many sweatshirts. We also started a GOFUNDME this weekend! We set our goal to $1000 and have met our goal! We have also been contacted by Metrowest Daily News and Holliston Reporter. We have interviews with them next week and they will be writing articles about our project which will be good publicity for our fundraising. Also, we have collaborated with a local veteran in town named Pete Hill. He has helped us with some fundraising and shopping. He had raised $2700 for homeless veterans and we helped him with his shopping. He gave us half of the items we bought (all the womens' clothing) to bring to the shelter with us when we bring our items. Overall, so far, we have had a lot of success with our project!

Our next steps-

We plan to fundraise at the Holliston Stroll. We want to sell hot chocolate and ask for donations for homeless veterans. We also need to have an educational portion to our project. We want to educate people about the severity of the situation at the Stroll, and about how much these veterans need our help. We are also going to go to the elementary school and educate the students about homeless veterans. We are going to ask the students to write notes, thanking the veterans for their service to our country. We think that seeing a note from a student who is grateful for what they have done for us will help to cheer up these veterans in a time of need.

Update -

We were able to raise $300 at the Holliston Stroll, it was a huge success. We are going to allocate these funds to buying christmas gifts for five children of homeless veterans. We are doing this through the Giving Tree Program at Veterans Inc. in Worcester MA. It allows us to sponsor children to make sure they receive gifts on Christmas. In addition, we are spending the rest of our go fund me funds to buy more winter clothing and hygeine products for homeless veterans. We finished our educational portion of our project. We collected 150 cards from various 5th graders at Miller Elementary School. All in all, the project is going really well and we can't wait to deliver the items on December 11th.

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