The Empowerment Plan

• Providing jobs for unhoused individuals, enabling them to gain skills and stability.
• Creating sleeping bag coats that keep those in need warm and safe during harsh weather conditions.

• Over 500,000 people are homeless in the U.S.A.
• The #1 life-changing factor of ending homelessness is job-creation.
• The Empowerment Plan has hired 65 homeless individuals, all of whom have secured permanent housing for their families.
• 100% success rate - No one has fallen back into homelessness since gaining employment with The Empowerment Plan.
• $125 funds a sleeping bag coat.

Brookline Cares is a volunteer organization started by Brookline High School students.  We  are raising awareness and collecting donations to provide winter coats to people in need. The money raised by this GoFundMe will be used to purchase Empowerment Coats to give out to people in communities with high rates of COVID. These communities also have high rates of poverty and homelessness. Empowerment Coats are coats that convert into sleeping bags and can be used by people experiencing homelessness or people who do not have shelter. Visit the Empowerment Plan website for more information  here .

The Kraft Center team will distribute the coats to people in Revere, Chelsea, Lynn, Charlestown, and Everett through their mobile testing vans. Visit here for more information about the Community Health Vans that will be distributing the Empowerment Coats.  If you would like to help make a positive difference in the world we live in, then this is the perfect cause to donate to.

Brookline Cares was founded by: Ellery Nistler, Gabriel Benavidez, Timothy Lee, Eliot Arnold, Matthew Murphy, Marco Tchernychev, and Rowan Michaud

1-5-20 Update

Our gratitude to all who made donations that enabled us to sponsor 20 new sleeping bag coats in December. They were distributed to people living outside during these freezing cold nights. Hundreds of our brothers and sisters are still living on the street or in the woods. They are the most vulnerable among us.

Please help us get these life-saving coats to as many people as possible. The full cost of a sponsored coat is $125 – an increase over last year, due to their increased expenses.

Shipping cost is $15 for a single coat.

We appreciate whatever tax-free contribution you can make. A donation of any amount helps us meet our goal.

This is an URGENT REQUEST.

We are three passionate advocates for the homeless in Asheville, NC – Pat and Larry Downing and Bill Robinson.  We are on a mission to get as many sleeping bag coats as possible to those who are sleeping outside on these cold winter nights. At this time, there are hundreds of homeless men, women and children in the Asheville area. Shelters cannot accommodate them all, so many are living and sleeping outside in all kinds of weather. Twenty people die from homeless-related causes every year in this area, some from freezing to death. These coats can save lives.

To see a demonstration of the coat, please go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orwagfd2F7M

The sleeping bag coats are very warm, light-weight coats that can transform into a sleeping bag or an over-the-shoulder bag when not in use. They are manufactured by the Empowerment Plan, a Detroit-based non-profit organization dedicated to serving the homeless community. The Empowerment Plan hires women from local shelters and trains them to become full time seamstresses so that they can earn a stable income, find secure housing, and gain back their independence for themselves and for their families.



The coats are creatively designed to be warm, comfortable and easy to use. When one is worn as a coat, the sleeping bag extension is folded up and secured to the inside of the back of the coat by strong Velcro. When used as a sleeping bag, the extension folds down. When it is not being used, the coat folds into a light-weight shoulder bag that is easy to carry.

The sleeping bag coats are donated to the homeless free of charge. This is an urgent need. We are looking for sponsors who will help us bring more coats to Asheville by donating some or all of the cost of a coat. Each coat costs $125 and shipping is $15. Every dollar helps us reach our goal.

Thank you for opening your heart to these vulnerable, courageous people who have gifts and dreams and hopes for the future. Thank you for helping make today a lot easier for them and perhaps saving a life along the way.
 
This is a project of http://www.livingwithkindness.com where we are building a world-wide community of people who are committed to living with love and kindness.