Every year my family and I go on a grand scavenger hunt for a decided list of strange objects.
At least, from the outside I’m sure that they appear to be strange objects. From our perspective, it makes complete sense that we are hitting every local dollar store, thrift store, and second hand shop searching for chapstick, blankets, and space heaters. You see, when winter rolls around we make a concerted effort to collect helpful items for the homeless in our area. Because we live in the northern part of the country, the winter is around here are constantly brutal. They are dangerous to survive without adequate shelter and Modern Heating and Cooling equipment. Even living in a house, you can easily freeze to death if you lose heat in the middle of a blizzard. It’s not uncommon for the elderly and sickly to pass away during a particularly bad cold snap. That’s why, we try to help in any way that we can by providing alternative heating sources such as blankets and space heaters. We found a program through the local church that accepts donations and distributes them to the needy. After that, we started a yearly tradition of visiting every thrift store in the county to collect every single electric space heater in good working order. We always take them home, clean them out, make sure that the small electric heaters are working properly before we donate them. So far, we’ve collected over 150 space heaters in the past 10 years. I hope that with our space heater donations, we’ve helped some people endure the miserable cold weather or even survive the difficult season.
