This week I finally got to take the donations to Columbia. On Friday I picked up the donations at Shelter Insurance in Kahoka. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of donations at this location! I put them in a pile so that Ashley, the newspaper writer, could take a picture of me with the donations. She asked me a few more questions so that she could put a thank you note in the paper. Saturday I left my house at 8 and made it to Columbia around 10:30. My Mom, Grandma, and Aunt went with me as we had a bridal shower to stop by on the way home in Macon. When I arrived, two nice workers helped me unload the donations onto a cart and take them inside. I then filled out a card stating my contact information so that they could send me a thank you. They were amazed at my over 320 items! They said that the house had been very full lately will all 18 rooms occupied currently and that these donations will be very helpful. I felt so good to finally have all the donations dropped off and I am so happy that I was able to collect so much and help so many people in need. I had originally wanted to take a few pictures of the house but my schedule was tight in order to be back for the bridal shower so I did not have time. They were also very busy with it being fully booked and I would have felt intruding to bother all of these families. When I went the first time in 2016 and toured it was a better time because many families were out at appointments or at the hospital and the staff wasn't quite as busy. In future trips I would like to go on a weekday and maybe take some of my friends with me. When I went to church on Sunday I was surprised that there were more donations sitting in the corner where my box had been. I also had someone at church give me money as a donation. My Mom had posted on Facebook and another person had mentioned that she had a donation but she did not get it to me. My Mom replied but she never answered. Luckily I have an awesome Mom who is going to Macon for her job and said she would run down and take the new donation by. I am so appreciative of this because I would have felt badly if I could not have gotten the new donation to the house. I don't know if I didn't make myself clear about the cutoff date or what but next time I will try to do a better job of this. I did not anticipate having this problem but none the less the project was a great success. I am now working on sending out thank you notes personally to most of the contributors. Unfortunately, I do not know all of the people who donated but hopefully I can come up with addresses for many of them. Once again thank you all for reading and for those that were able to donate. I hope this inspires others to help people, even in small ways. One act of kindness can go a long way!

This week I have been collecting donations personally. I went to a doctor's office Monday to pick up some donations. Today I am going to a lady's house to pick up a donation. I have already picked up the donations from both of the local churches. One of the boxes did not have anything in it but I guess that's to be expected with a short time frame. I have collected 106 items so far! I am going to pick up the box in Memphis today and the box in Kahoka tomorrow. I am excited to see the impact the newspaper article has made on the number of items donated at these locations. My original plan was to ask for donations from businesses and distribute flyers but I haven't had much time for that so I hope the newspaper article will make up for it. I am surprised by what kind of items I have received the most of. I have a bunch of soaps, toothpastes, deodorants, and other toiletries.  I was expecting to receive more food donations but have rather had more toiletries. I am hoping the donation boxes I haven't collected yet will have more food items to round out the donation. I have received one handmade blanket that is not on the list but is still accepted. I have made blankets before and taken them to the Ronald McDonald House so I am glad that there will be a blanket in my donation. It is a John Deer pattern and I will post a picture of it along with a sampling of the other items I have collected so far. On Friday when I go to pick up the donation I am also going to meet with Ashley at the newspaper so she can take a picture of the items I have collected and write a thank you to the community to publish in the newspaper. I am really glad she had this idea. I think is very important to thank all of these generous people. I called down to the Ronald McDonald House to make sure it was ok for me to come this Saturday the 14th. They said that it was great and that they really appreciated it. I hope to take a few pictures of the house while I am there Saturday so that I can post them for you all to see. Thank you all for reading this and if you would like to donate there is still time! The donation box in Kahoka will still be available until Friday at 3:30 and I am more than happy to try to arrange a donation pickup elsewhere. Thanks.

This week I have been checking on the boxes and have collected a few items. I am surprised that I have more donations in the Memphis location than the Kahoka location. I believe this must be due to the fact that I called the collection information into KMEM and more people must listen to KMEM in Memphis than in Kahoka. I was able to contact the Hometown Journal newspaper in Kahoka, MO and sit down with one of their writers for an interview about my collection. On Friday I met with Ashley from the Hometown and she had a lot of great questions. We discussed the importance of organizations like the Ronald McDonald House. I provided her with a list of the items acceptable for donations. I also told her that I am extending the collection date to end Friday April 13th. I will then take the donations to Columbia on the 14th. I need to call ahead and inform them I am going to drop the stuff off that morning. Ashley also said that she would put my senior composite with the article so that people would recognize me. Hopefully this will bring in more donations as people will recognize me from previous school activities I have participated in. I will try and post a picture of the article on here once it publishes which should be early this week. I have checked on the box at my church and it has a few items in it. I have yet to check on the box at the Christian church in Wyaconda but I hope it has many donations also. I finally ordered some items on Amazon. I was able to get a good deal on my items because they were purchased in bulk and I had coupons. I also have free student prime so I did not have to pay for shipping. I planned on asking for donations from some businesses this week but am not sure how I am going to accomplish that because my week is pretty busy. Hopefully I will find time.