Donations.

This is 180 lbs. of scrapbooking supplies that I no longer "love".  Yesterday I ran across a Paperclipping blog post suggesting the donation of unused and no longer loved supplies to help children under state custody make Life Books.  Here is a description of what this is about: 

“Children in the custody of Social Services create Life Books to remember their lives and the people they have lived with. Life Books are simple scrapbooks the social workers, foster families, and adoptive families put together with the children. Life Books are also used as a form of therapy, to get to know the children, and to understand their situations. They are also used to help the children feel a sense of belonging. The children take the books with them as they move through Social Services. Scrapbook supplies are used to create these books, but Social Service offices don’t have budgets for the supplies they need."

When I called my local social services office yesterday, it was relatively easy for me to find a contact person to whom I could give this donation.  He was very appreciative of the gesture and talked about the children (including teenagers) and social workers who would be using these supplies.  I expressed concern that maybe some of the items in these boxes wouldn't necessarily appeal to children and wondered if I should sort the items so as to only give child-friendly items.  This is where he told me of the many teenagers making books like this and that their tastes vary.  He also spoke of women who make these Life Books for younger children.  I was so touched by this project that I now intend to purge my supplies regularly and donate them to Henrico County Social Services.

If you, too, have excess supplies and would like to purge and donate, I suggest you call your local county social services office to see if they'd accept your supplies for this Life Book project.  I have a feeling they'd appreciate anything you could offer them.