To provide, free of charge, low-income and homeless children from birth to pre-teen the basic essentials they need to be safe, warm, ready to learn, and valued. We also set a foundation for lasting change through the meaningful, tangible volunteer opportunities we provide to thousands of youth and adults each year.

Description:
Our Model: We're the glue between communities that have and communities that need. We make it simple for children, families, corporations to give their time, treasures and talent to benefit other children in their community. By partnering with social service agencies for distribution, we have a direct channel to serve tens of thousands of children in need each year.

The kids we help: Living in poverty means no books, shoes that don't fit properly, a worn-out winter coat. When you donate to Cradles to Crayons, you can be absolutely sure that your donation goes to a deserving local child, for whom the donation was specifically requested. Partnering with social service agencies enables us to reach thousands of individual children each month. Our partners include hospitals, health centers, family-service agencies, shelters and schools, among others.

There is a great need for our services. Almost 500,000 Massachusetts kids (one out of three) live in poor or low-income households.* At some point this year, almost one in five of these children (98,000) will experience homlessness. Homeless families remain in a shelter, on average, for 6 months before finding permanent housing.** According to the US Census Bureau, Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate among the nation's ten largest cities. Nearly one in four Philadelphians, including 130,000 children, live in poverty.*** We opened our second Giving Factory there, this summer.

C2C provides year-round support for children in these situations.

The Kids Who Help Us: At the same time, there are families looking for new homes for never-used or gently-used clothing, books, toys and other "stuff" their own kids have outgrown or no longer use. C2C serves as a bridge connecting those who have more with those who have less, effectivly tearing down the invisible walls dividing our communities.

Thousands of kids, every year, give us their treasures, hold product drives and work a "shift" at our warehouse, The Giving Factory. In the doing, C2C kids experience enduring understanding and learn real lessons in leadership, social justice, service and the power of giving. We call it "tangible philanthropy".

*Source: National Center for Children and Poverty
** Source: Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless
*** Source: Philadelphia Inquirer (9/5/06)

History:
In 2002, business strategy consultant and former White House policy advisor, Lynn Margherio, noticed how many outgrown clothes and toys her nieces and nephews owned—in virtually new condition. She knew many less-fortunate kids could use the items, but she discovered that it was often difficult for the families who had the items to connect to the families who needed them. Lynn founded Cradles to Crayons to fill this need.

Five years later, more than 75,000 local children-in-need have received Cradles to Crayons packages. This has been made possible by a grassroots network of more than 20,000 youth and adults who have shared their time, treasures and talent with us so we have what we need to fill the hundreds of requests we receive every week, and a distribution network of over 300 social service agencies who deliver our packages to the clients they serve. In 2006 alone, 30,000 local children received high-quality children's goods to keep them warm, safe at home, and ready to learn at school.

Through community partnerships with neighbors, schools and companies, as well as civic and faith-based organizations, we generate the supply of products and labor needed to expand our services. Through distribution partnerships with shelters, health centers, schools, parenting programs and day cares, we directly reach the children who are most at-risk and in-need.

Contact person: Volunteer C2C, Volunteer Coordinator, (phone), (email)
Office fax number: (866) 841-9995

Address:

82 Myrtle St. Quincy, MA 02171 (See a map)

Directions:

We are located in the back of “E.F. Smith & Son/Avenue Auction Sales,” a three-story, beige industrial building, situated on a small hill. If you see the entrance to 80 Myrtle Street, you are on the opposite side of the. . . (more)   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: North Quincy,   Walk distance (in minutes): 5   Nearest Bus Stop: 210, 5 minute walk For maps or information, please see http://www.mbta.com

Overall Experience   
Wonderful, positive supervisors who made our experience a rich one.

Our local Junior Woman's Club volunteered one Saturday. Members came with older children as well as a spouse of a member. WE sorted clothing and evaluated toys. The experience was particularly enlightening for my son (10). He learned a lot about the statistics of poverty and what a difference Cradles to Crayons can make in the life of a child like himself. posted on January 30, 2005