GBLL Board member Bob Kight and his family at the 2011 delivery

By Steve Anstett

It’s been a wild ride for Giving Back in 2011! We have a really interesting dynamic and are unique among volunteer organizations.We have a large volunteer force of committed people and we have a tremendous outlet for the service we provide.

Our biggest gap, however, is the goods. This year we filled 21 U-Haul trucks with clothes, food, toiletries, and other supplies. On Christmas Eve morning we went to 23 shelters with 18 of these trucks. Every shelter is different — men’s shelters, women and children, transitional housing, facilities just serving meals to men and women on the street, and this year, one stop focused on the Anne Arundel County House of Hope, and particularly “Winter Relief." The one constant, among all of these shelters, is that they are filled with folks just like you and me — it is a stark lesson in reality to see Ph.Ds in a homeless shelter (we saw two!).

On Christmas Eve evening we went to the streets. At our first stop we were greeted by close to 500 folks waiting for us. Of those people living on the streets, some have access to shelters, but all are very needy. We were glad to provide them our signature backpacks, with thermals, sweatshirt, socks, hats and gloves. One hundred of these backpacks were collected by the kids in sixth grade at SPMS! Another 25 came from the SPHS Leadership group, coordinated by senior Janey Dike.

Shipley’s Choice resident Zach Farrell, a sophomore at Spalding High School, went to his neighbors and collected sponsors for 30 backpacks! Altogether, businesses, schools, churches, and individuals (like Zach) sponsored 1,746 backpacks — our most ever!

In addition to the items we brought to the shelters on Christmas Eve, our volunteers provided and served lunch at one of the largest shelters in Baltimore (over 225 lunches served). This project was led by Severna Park resident Jeanette Middleton Sudano. We also participated in worship services at some of the shelters. We sang Christmas carols, and had shelter residentstell their personal stories. Part of our mission is to help with the education of our community on the issues of homelessness, and we accomplish this through the interactions that our volunteers get in the shelters.

We received remarkable support from our volunteers during the week leading up to Christmas. We had hundreds of volunteers from all over the area, mostly high school and college students. This year we had 24 different schools represented among our volunteers.

In December, the Severna Park Voice recognized Bobby Keating, a Severna Park resident who is a senior at Clemson, as their Volunteer of the Month. Keating has been volunteering for eight years, but recently he has become a leader at the collection site. He is so integral to our process that I can honestly say he may be the one piece of our puzzle that is irreplaceable.

Giving Back, Linda’s Legacy gets so much support from Severna Park and the surrounding community, and we can’t thank you enough. We are lucky to have so many involved folks, both during the drive and the months leading up to the drive.

If you would like to become more involved, we would love to hear from you. Visit us on the web at www.homelessdrive.com.