DonutsForWorkers2018
Donation protected
You've heard about it on the podcast "Hilarious World of Depression's" holiday special....
https://www.apmpodcasts.org/thwod/2017/12/the-holiday-coping-mechanism-spectacular/
You've read the articles on TurnTo Network's "Good Turns" series...
https://www.turntonetworks.com/goodturns/donuts-on-black-friday/
https://www.turntonetworks.com/goodturns/just-giving-out-donuts-year-after-year/
You've maybe even seen it in the Monroe Evening News...
http://www.monroenews.com/news/2014/Nov/29/brightening-black-friday-many
That's right, back for another year, bigger and better than ever... the 2018 Donuts For Black Friday Workers campaign!
Intro
For those new to this, here's the skinny. I used to work in retail. Retail normally makes its employees work weird, long hours, especially around the holidays. This stinks, because it often means missed Thanksgiving meals, or missed Christmas dinners, or a terrible sleep schedule.
After I "escaped" retail, the following Thanksgiving I decided to go back to the last store I worked at and delivered a bunch of donuts and hot coffee to the workers stuck in there at 2am, waiting for the Black Friday nonsense to start. Then I did it again the following year. Then, I started adding other places that were open during the same time, and asking for donations to cover the cost of donuts to as many stores as possible. Eventually, the donations way outstripped the cost of the donuts. I began donating the excess to the Monroe County Opportunity Program's food bank .
It grows....
I started picking up the cost of donuts so that all the money raised went straight to the food bank. 200 bucks one year became over 500 bucks the next, became 1000, then 2000...
And grows...
All told, we've been doing this over five years and have raised over four thousand dollars for the food bank, while delivering donuts to workers all through the Thanksgiving night and into the Black Friday day.
So much good.
A little math: The director of the MCOP food pantry once told me that the way they receive and deliver fresh, nutritious food to those most in need in Monroe county can be done for as little as twenty cents per pound of food. That $4,441 has easily helped serve over 20,000 pounds of food. Or ten tons. Which is as heavy as a cruise ship anchor.
My point is, thanks to you, we've all fed a lot of needy families a lot of good, nutritious food (and it really is, too - the food bank incentivizes the use of "whole" foods, like fruits, veggies, and fresh meat, rather than processed junk. It's a good program!).
So anyways, we're doing it again, with some changes and additions!
The Plan!
Fundraising goal: $3500. I'm covering the cost of donuts for Monroe County's deliveries.
Come late Thanksgiving evening, I'm going to start my rounds, hitting up the big-box and other retail joints open during Thanksgiving and early Black Friday. Think Walmart, Meijer, Dunham's sports.... and yes, even the Mall of Monroe (for those who remember last year, there was a bit of an... issue. It's a long story). I'll also be delivering to the Monroe Regional Hospital, the police outposts, any fire stations open (know any firemen? Please get them in touch with me, I can never find any awake firefighters to deliver donuts to), and even central dispatch.
(Am I missing anyone? If your work is open and I can visit, let me know, along with approximately how many people are working that shift!)
But wait, there's more.
It's also personal.
I'm also going to be delivering as many donuts as I can to the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Why? Funny you should ask... (personal, long, kinda gross story ahead)
In June of this year, I started feeling bad. Real bad. I thought it was just a virus. I was told it was a stomach virus. I kept getting worse, not better. My symptoms were all over the map, and felt worse than just a virus. I kept throwing up. I stopped eating. I couldn't sleep. Couldn't get out of bed. My personality was different. I was disoriented. I was hallucinating and starting to have emotional breakdowns. After several weeks of this and not getting any answers locally, I drove myself up to the U of M emergency room. Within hours they had a diagnosis, and some pretty damn serious news: I had a perforated colon, and severe septic shock. I wasn't going anywhere for a while.
After two emergency surgeries, they put me in the ICU, where I stayed for several weeks. They removed 25% of my colon. They gave me a cocktail of antibiotics to fight the sepsis, and discovered large blood clots near my liver. Soon, they pumped me full of blood thinners AND antibiotics. And blood. And nutrients. I was hooked up to all sorts of contraptions, drains, hoses, and tubes.
I had an open wound from sternum on down that was being drained twice a day. I lost over 50 pounds.
I had to learn to walk again, my muscles having atrophied to the point that moving my legs was a Herculean effort.
I had to learn how to take care of the consequences having a small intestine poking out of my side like a weird science experiment
I had to come to terms with the near death experience.
Eventually I got the all clear to come home, which meant even more healing. My wife, a rock star of a saint, took care of me for 24 hours a day for most of August, learning how to dress my wounds and treat my new reality and how to administer IV bags of drugs and a million other things.
I finally got better enough to return to work in September.
It's been a hell of a year, but I'm at least here to deliver donuts again thanks to the doctors, nurses, and specialists at the U of M hospital. Had it not been for them, I'd be dead.
(And for those wondering, I'm well on the way to a full, complete recovery!)
Anyways, that's why I'm including them this year. The entire staff kicks ass, and they are saints. There's just one problem; the hospital is ENORMOUS. The Michigan Medicine system has 28,000+ employees, 5000+ nurses, 1800+ doctors... you get the picture. It's a big place. To buy donuts for everyone working at just the single hospital I stayed at would wipe out the entire fundraising this year.
So here's the plan: The first $500 raised this year goes to buying however many donuts I can buy to deliver to the hospital, starting on the night shift of Thanksgiving evening.
The rest of the money goes to the MCOP as usual.
So that's the goal, folks; $500 for donuts for the U of M Hospital, and $3000+ for the MCOP.
Can we do it? Of course we can. This isn't our first rodeo. This isn't even our second, or third, rodeo. We've been doing this for five years, because we're AWESOME.
Here's what I'm asking from you, and how YOU can make a difference this year:
1) Donate. Even a little bit goes a long way - remember, at 20 cents a pound, even 5 bucks is 25 pounds of food during the holiday season for a family in need!
2) Don't want to or can't donate? No problem: Give. Make some baked treats and deliver them to a store you're near. Make someone smile with baked goods.
3) Can't donate money and can't bake? No problem, I have a plan for you, too, but it's a secret for now. If you're interested, let me know. It involves being available early Black Friday and maybe being okay with a little bit of guerrilla charity :)
Let's do this. To make someone stuck working long hours during the holidays smile a bit, and to help deliver a LOT of food to a LOT of people in need.
Good people. Good deeds. Good donuts.
Thanks in advance, and please spread the word!
https://www.apmpodcasts.org/thwod/2017/12/the-holiday-coping-mechanism-spectacular/
You've read the articles on TurnTo Network's "Good Turns" series...
https://www.turntonetworks.com/goodturns/donuts-on-black-friday/
https://www.turntonetworks.com/goodturns/just-giving-out-donuts-year-after-year/
You've maybe even seen it in the Monroe Evening News...
http://www.monroenews.com/news/2014/Nov/29/brightening-black-friday-many
That's right, back for another year, bigger and better than ever... the 2018 Donuts For Black Friday Workers campaign!
Intro
For those new to this, here's the skinny. I used to work in retail. Retail normally makes its employees work weird, long hours, especially around the holidays. This stinks, because it often means missed Thanksgiving meals, or missed Christmas dinners, or a terrible sleep schedule.
After I "escaped" retail, the following Thanksgiving I decided to go back to the last store I worked at and delivered a bunch of donuts and hot coffee to the workers stuck in there at 2am, waiting for the Black Friday nonsense to start. Then I did it again the following year. Then, I started adding other places that were open during the same time, and asking for donations to cover the cost of donuts to as many stores as possible. Eventually, the donations way outstripped the cost of the donuts. I began donating the excess to the Monroe County Opportunity Program's food bank .
It grows....
I started picking up the cost of donuts so that all the money raised went straight to the food bank. 200 bucks one year became over 500 bucks the next, became 1000, then 2000...
And grows...
All told, we've been doing this over five years and have raised over four thousand dollars for the food bank, while delivering donuts to workers all through the Thanksgiving night and into the Black Friday day.
So much good.
A little math: The director of the MCOP food pantry once told me that the way they receive and deliver fresh, nutritious food to those most in need in Monroe county can be done for as little as twenty cents per pound of food. That $4,441 has easily helped serve over 20,000 pounds of food. Or ten tons. Which is as heavy as a cruise ship anchor.
My point is, thanks to you, we've all fed a lot of needy families a lot of good, nutritious food (and it really is, too - the food bank incentivizes the use of "whole" foods, like fruits, veggies, and fresh meat, rather than processed junk. It's a good program!).
So anyways, we're doing it again, with some changes and additions!
The Plan!
Fundraising goal: $3500. I'm covering the cost of donuts for Monroe County's deliveries.
Come late Thanksgiving evening, I'm going to start my rounds, hitting up the big-box and other retail joints open during Thanksgiving and early Black Friday. Think Walmart, Meijer, Dunham's sports.... and yes, even the Mall of Monroe (for those who remember last year, there was a bit of an... issue. It's a long story). I'll also be delivering to the Monroe Regional Hospital, the police outposts, any fire stations open (know any firemen? Please get them in touch with me, I can never find any awake firefighters to deliver donuts to), and even central dispatch.
(Am I missing anyone? If your work is open and I can visit, let me know, along with approximately how many people are working that shift!)
But wait, there's more.
It's also personal.
I'm also going to be delivering as many donuts as I can to the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Why? Funny you should ask... (personal, long, kinda gross story ahead)
In June of this year, I started feeling bad. Real bad. I thought it was just a virus. I was told it was a stomach virus. I kept getting worse, not better. My symptoms were all over the map, and felt worse than just a virus. I kept throwing up. I stopped eating. I couldn't sleep. Couldn't get out of bed. My personality was different. I was disoriented. I was hallucinating and starting to have emotional breakdowns. After several weeks of this and not getting any answers locally, I drove myself up to the U of M emergency room. Within hours they had a diagnosis, and some pretty damn serious news: I had a perforated colon, and severe septic shock. I wasn't going anywhere for a while.
After two emergency surgeries, they put me in the ICU, where I stayed for several weeks. They removed 25% of my colon. They gave me a cocktail of antibiotics to fight the sepsis, and discovered large blood clots near my liver. Soon, they pumped me full of blood thinners AND antibiotics. And blood. And nutrients. I was hooked up to all sorts of contraptions, drains, hoses, and tubes.
I had an open wound from sternum on down that was being drained twice a day. I lost over 50 pounds.
I had to learn to walk again, my muscles having atrophied to the point that moving my legs was a Herculean effort.
I had to learn how to take care of the consequences having a small intestine poking out of my side like a weird science experiment
I had to come to terms with the near death experience.
Eventually I got the all clear to come home, which meant even more healing. My wife, a rock star of a saint, took care of me for 24 hours a day for most of August, learning how to dress my wounds and treat my new reality and how to administer IV bags of drugs and a million other things.
I finally got better enough to return to work in September.
It's been a hell of a year, but I'm at least here to deliver donuts again thanks to the doctors, nurses, and specialists at the U of M hospital. Had it not been for them, I'd be dead.
(And for those wondering, I'm well on the way to a full, complete recovery!)
Anyways, that's why I'm including them this year. The entire staff kicks ass, and they are saints. There's just one problem; the hospital is ENORMOUS. The Michigan Medicine system has 28,000+ employees, 5000+ nurses, 1800+ doctors... you get the picture. It's a big place. To buy donuts for everyone working at just the single hospital I stayed at would wipe out the entire fundraising this year.
So here's the plan: The first $500 raised this year goes to buying however many donuts I can buy to deliver to the hospital, starting on the night shift of Thanksgiving evening.
The rest of the money goes to the MCOP as usual.
So that's the goal, folks; $500 for donuts for the U of M Hospital, and $3000+ for the MCOP.
Can we do it? Of course we can. This isn't our first rodeo. This isn't even our second, or third, rodeo. We've been doing this for five years, because we're AWESOME.
Here's what I'm asking from you, and how YOU can make a difference this year:
1) Donate. Even a little bit goes a long way - remember, at 20 cents a pound, even 5 bucks is 25 pounds of food during the holiday season for a family in need!
2) Don't want to or can't donate? No problem: Give. Make some baked treats and deliver them to a store you're near. Make someone smile with baked goods.
3) Can't donate money and can't bake? No problem, I have a plan for you, too, but it's a secret for now. If you're interested, let me know. It involves being available early Black Friday and maybe being okay with a little bit of guerrilla charity :)
Let's do this. To make someone stuck working long hours during the holidays smile a bit, and to help deliver a LOT of food to a LOT of people in need.
Good people. Good deeds. Good donuts.
Thanks in advance, and please spread the word!
Organizer
Josh Eikenberry
Organizer
Monroe, MI
