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| Last updated on January 15, 2008 |
We are a furniture, home and baby Goods-Bank providing free basic things to the needy "one wish at a time" in the Merrimack Valley. Each night more than 200 people go to bed on floors for lack of a bed in Lowell. Many programs help to move clients from homelessness into low income homes but few provide any support for expensive furniture. Each year we provide more than 600 families complete homes full of furniture along with clothes, coats, backpacks, cribs, Christmas gifts and more to help them succeed in escaping the system. Our aim is to help donors find welcome homes for goods, reduce landfill and move homeless families into permanent sustainability by giving them complete home goods for free. More than 90% of the clients are women and children and more than 33% are spousal assault victims.
Description:
Each year we assist more than 20,000 clients referred through more than 100 social service agencies. In addition to providing used goods such as furniture, clothing, bedding and baby gear - we sponsor 12 monthly service projects to direct seasonal new goods to the region such as Backpacks in September.
History:
Several years ago our founder, Donna Hunnewell watched her two babies begin to outgrow their gear. Donna began searching, but could not find a way to get her kids outgrown goods directly to someone in need. She readily recognized this as a need in and of itself!
In late December of 2003, she got an email from an agency that a large group of families needed 70 decorated Christmas trees one week before the holiday. She sent out an email to her friends. Thanks to the Girl Scouts, all 70 trees made it to the families by Christmas. With this simple act of kindness from so many strangers via the Internet, an idea was born.
Over the past 5 years, through her work with many agencies and the City of Lowell Hunger/Homeless Commission she coordinated the development of the Wish List an Internet match service where the public could find a home for their donated donated goods through an Internet matching service.
The Wish List was a step forward. But most agencies just could not pick up goods fast enough. And donations rarely matched the needs exactly. A small warehouse was needed where the public could drop at their convenience and the caseworkers could pickup what they need only when needed.
We were founded in 2005 and moved into our current large warehouse space off the Lowell Connector in January of 2006.
In January of 2006 the Wish Project moved into a large warehouse space with plenty of room for volunteers and furniture. Now in addition to making wishes come true, the Project is a furniture depot and is actively procuring bulk donations that other agencies could never handle such as tractor trailer loads of mattresses, clothing etc. The Project still uses the Internet to broadcast the unfilled wishes each week out to the public. In addition, the Project can easily contact more than 400 caseworkers to disperse the bulk goods and share information. The Weekly Urgent Wish Newsletter successfully helps get just what is needed - right to the client in need.
As of winter 2006 the Wish Project now works with more than 94 agencies and programs in the Merrimack Valley. We are a sharing network of information, goods, labor and trucks.
The concept of a Goods Bank is similar to that of a Food Bank. We work all year long to make sure that basic goods are available in one central location to all of the caseworkers so that they can spend more time doing their core jobs and still know that their clients get basic needed things
Contact people:
Office fax number: (978) 441-9474
Address:
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1 A Foundry Street
Lowell, MA 01852
(See a map) |
Web Site: http://www.TheWishProject.org
Directions:
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495 to Lowell Connector to Exit #4 for Plain St.
Bear right off exit
1. Continue on Plain St past Hannaford's plaza and Bob’s Furniture
2. Turn right on Foundry St. into Foundry Industrial Park/Mini Storage
3. Take first right a. . . (more)
Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: Commuter Rail Lowell,
Walk distance (in minutes): 15
Nearest Bus Stop: Plaza, 10 min minute walk
For maps or information, please see http://www.mbta.com/schedmaps/index.cfm |
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