OLPH Women's Club gets head start on this year's Dignity Drive
It could be hard to collect items for this year's Dignity Drive, co-chair Meghan Kearney thought, given the distancing and financial difficulties COVID-19 has wrought.
She may not have seen Erin Cook's house recently. The rows of grocery bags and boxes inside say otherwise. And the drive hasn't even begun yet.
The two Glenview women are co-chairs of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Women's Clubs' Dignity Drive, which runs Feb. 8-20.
Along with fellow co-chairs Kathy Jen, Katie King, Mary McCormick and Jeannie Vassilos plus Betty Collins, the longtime volunteer in the church's Sharing Room, guild members within the Women's Club collect and disperse personal hygiene products to people who need them.
Items go to the Northfield Township Food Pantry and several sharing church parishes in Chicago.
"A lot of this is just about dignity, that's what it really comes down to," Cook said. "And that's how we came up with the name - how does it make one feel when they're able to take care of themselves and feel clean, and that's all the way from adults to kids."
It's the third year of the campaign. There are 38 guilds within the OLPH Women's Club, and Kearney and Cook and Co. were looking for a meaningful project when they discovered the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) doesn't cover personal hygiene products.
"Some of these families have one toothbrush that they're sharing. Some of these families have one bar of soap to get them through six months," Kearney said.
"They don't have a lot, and what we're able to provide for them may help them be able to get a job interview. It's going to help them feel clean, and get up and shower and go to school clean or go to work clean."
They're looking for any type and size of hygiene products. Shampoo and conditioner, toothpaste and toothbrushes and feminine hygiene products, soap, lotion, shaving cream and razors, deodorant and laundry detergent.
"They end up being luxuries, sometimes, because there's just not enough money to go around," Collins said. She's volunteered at the OLPH Sharing Room since Sister Paulanne Held - "almost a saint," Kearney called her - started it 38 years ago.
Kearney said they'll accept diapers and even rolls of quarters for families to do laundry outside of the home. People can donate money that will buy more goods.
In 2020 the Dignity Drive collected 406 bags of items that included 634 personal hygiene kits, 12,389 ounces of hygiene essentials and 25,450 items. The Chicago recruiting firm where Cook works, Connect Search, donated more than 1,200 items.
One testimonial, from Catholic Charities in Chicago, reported: "Recipients received them like treasures."
"It's a life-changing drive," said Kearney, who's been planning this one with her co-chairs since October.
There are Dignity Drive collection bins at the OLPH Sharing Room and at the Glenview homes of both Kearney and Cook (email cook at erin.cook@connectsearchll.com for information).
Kearney said Glenview Grind has already committed to hosting a collection bin and other businesses may follow. In 2020 around a dozen businesses were drop-off sites.
The Women's Club guilds - Nos. 1, 8 and 21 - spread the word through their own social media accounts. Information also will be available on OLPH's Facebook and Instagram (@OLPHGlenview) sites, and people can purchase items on a Dignity Drive Amazon wish list at tiny.cc/dignity.
"This can truly be a countrywide effort," Cook said.
It can definitely be a household-filling effort. More than two weeks before it technically begins, Cook had scores of full boxes crowded into her front room.
"Every year we're trying to break the previous year's record," she said. "I think we should be able to do that. We're off to a pretty good start and the drive hasn't even started."