Furniture and Baby Goods 
Special note! We still have many families in need for Christmas. We welcome your new toys and gifts up until Dec 23. See list below or
Contact us. Get details: Click here!|
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Christmas gifts Needed! New toys and gifts also welcome for families not yet sponsored: Monopoly, footballs, soccer balls, basketballs, Red Sox or Patriots t-shirts, radios, wrist watches, CD-Players, DVD's, Barbie dolls, Leggo's, RC cards, Matchbox, Dolls of all kinds, Bionicles, Pokemon, giftcards to food store, CVS, .... we can place almost anything new. |
In the past year, we helped more than 24,500 needy kids and families to get more than $850,000 worth of furniture, baby gear, backpacks, clothing, diapers and more. The need is greater than ever. We fill wishes for needy clients from more than 100 existing homeless shelters and other social services. Our large warehouse in Lowell provides a safe place for people to donate, volunteer, help their clients and get the goods they need to thrive in this failing economy.
Free furniture means a family can succeed in escaping a shelter the first time. Every wish come true means one more bed that is not in a landfill and more space in your attic. We run Service Projects and welcome volunteers all year longService projects including Backpack Attack, Blanket the Valley, Turkey Brigade and the Magic of Christmas - provide more thousands of kids with than $500,000 in value of seasonal goods each year.
OUR DREAM: The Project's dream is to find industrial zoned land in Lowell and build a final permanent home and build a live, work, give green building.
Most agencies are located in the Greater Lowell and Lawrence area although we do not limit help if they can get to us to pick up. More than 85% of the 24,500 clients we serve are women and children. Roughly 33% are spousal assault victims (women and the children). Other clients served include the elderly, motel-families, mentally retarded adults, foster care children, teens, single adults in shelter, children with AIDs, and new immigrants from more than 14 countries.
Most wishes are for furniture, home and baby goods. It is the volume of need for basic things each week that is staggering. In this day and age in America, no child should be sleeping on the floor for lack of a bed.
Volunteers are welcome all year long to process clothing, stuff packs and more. We welcome individuals or groups up to 100.
In 2007/8 we assited more than 850 families with complete home furnishings as they moved from homeless shelters to homes. Your donated goods provide a leg up, a tax donation and help the environment. We help all the agencies help more people on tightening budgets.
We are working to improve the environment by reducing bulky waste in landfills. This year alone we reduced the city's waste in our landfill by 1% saving a value of $35,000 in trash tipping fees. The efforts of the Wish Project began in 2003. The Project became a 501c3 in 2005 and moved into the current location a 13,000 sq ft warehouse in 2006.
Donors can rest assured that their time and goods invested are going out for free to the neediest clients from area homeless shelters, housing agencies and other social service agencies.
The founder, Donna Hunnewell, spent several years investigating how to best help the homeless in her town. She volunteered and visited with leaders from many pantries, early intervention programs and other agencies. Then she compiled an Excel spreadsheet of "what goods are needed during what time of year".
With a minivan and a cell phone and 2 babies in tow, she began answering calls from caseworkers for clients that urgently needed goods. Over the five years it took to raise two babies to school age, the project moved from her car to her porch to several small storage locations and to the current rental space.
In 2005 with the help of a Jerich Road volunteer, she created an online public matching service called the "Wish List". The idea was to make it easy for the public to find an agency that needed that donated item. But it soon became clear that few agencies had the trucks, space or staff to receive donations the way the public wanted to donate them. So, based on the food bank model, she began a Goods Bank. Through support of the City of Lowell Hunger/Homeless Commission and a Community Development Block Grant, The Wish Project moved 4 times in 2005 and finally settled into a large warehouse space big enough for a furniture bank in 2006.
This large space allows us to make use of very large corporate donations such as entire hotels full of mattresses. And by accepting off season goods and saving them we work to minimize the emergency needs for goods by anticipating for them.
We can also accommodate more than 100 volunteers at one time and work nights and weekends to best meet volunteer's scheduling needs.
Many things are needed seasonally for instance backpacks in September and coats during the winter. So we run monthly service projects to increase public awareness of the specific needs while raising awareness of the many sub-populations of needy clients. We funnel large quantities of goods to many agencies - right when they need them. Each backpack and newborn kit means one more mother that is a bit more able to buy food or pay a bill that month.
Our motto is "only what they need, right when they need it". We are dedicated to the belief that individual clients in need are best served when served by the system. So we work along side all the agencies to provide goods in the most efficient way possible for the benefit of all; including government, faith-based, and private non-profit organizations.