GSDC

This past December, Greater Southwest's Industrial Division partnered with Southwest Chicago PADS, a local faith-based organization that provides social services and temporary shelter to our community's homeless, to organize the 1st Annual "Christmas Bazaar" Toy Drive. Greater Southwest reached out to the manufacturers that make up the Harlem and Greater Southwest industrial corridors to provide toys and gifts for the 200 or so children of the shelter's 150 neediest families (pictured left, the Dixon family after they'd gone through the Bazaar).

Our first-ever industrial division toy drive was a great success thanks largely to significant contributions from one of our area's largest employers, the Kraft/Nabisco Bakery at 7300 S. Kedzie Ave., and from Grace Davison, an international chemical company whose local plant at 71st & Pulaski has been in operation since the late 1940s. Greater Southwest staff also contributed in the effort to bring some holiday cheer into the lives of the less fortunate.

The drive was organized in conjunction with PADS' annual Christmas Bazaar, held on December 19, 2008. The bazaar is set up as an opportunity for some of the shelter's neediest families to "shop" for holiday gifts. Invited families were assigned "elves" - volunteers - that took each guest around to tables which were stacked with the donated toys and other gifts arranged by age appropriateness. Parents were able to pick toys and get them gift-wrapped. This year, thanks to the generous support of Payless Shoes, the shelter was able to offer coupons for new shoes.

"…[The] Bazaar helps take the burden off parents who can ill afford to buy [presents] for Christmas," says Ellen Garza, PADS' director of finance and administration. Parents can spend their limited resources on covering basic expenses like rent and food without sacrificing the joy a gift can bring to their kids.
The idea for the drive came from a conversation between Greater Southwest's Lenora Dailey and Ms. Garza. Ms. Garza noticed a rise recently in the number families the shelter was seeing, and Ms. Dailey suggested organizing a toy drive to provide more items for kids at the Bazaar.

The logistics of companies' participation in the drive varied. Grace, based on past experience, used a list of the children's gender and age (ranging from infants to teenagers) to provide participating employees a specific person to buy for. Kraft, with far more employees, set up their own collection boxes and did not assign specific children to participants. Toys were collected from companies and delivered by Greater Southwest a few days before the bazaar.

What did not vary, however, was the generosity of each company's employees. Amid the current economic downturn, we were able to collect gifts for nearly all the shelter's children. The donated items included everything from remote control cars to stuffed animals to gift cards. Dan Deacon, Site Manager for Grace and drive contact, captured his employees' perspective this way: they "realize that many families in the area experience hardships that do not afford them the opportunity to give gifts to…[their] children." Echoing Ms. Garza's take on the bazaar itself, the drive was an opportunity to lighten those hardships just a little bit and is "definitely a program that…Grace…want[s] to continue each and every year." At Kraft, Jamie Merkel helped organize the plant's successful collection.

Founded in 1993 by Sister Therese DelGenio, Southwest Chicago PADS - or, Public Action to Deliver Shelter - provides emergency shelter, food, clothing, and referrals for further assistance for individuals who are homeless; seeks to prevent at-risk individuals from becoming homeless; and works to educate the wider community about homelessness. PADS is volunteer-based and maintains a small salaried staff, programming, and an independent facility thanks entirely to private grants and donations. The shelter, located near 71st and Kedzie, is across the street from Marquette Park. Proximity to the park makes PADS more accessible to the many homeless for whom the park serves as a kind of home.

Greater Southwest and PADS send along heartfelt thanks this year's toy drive participants. We hope you or your company will join us next year in repeating the drive's success. In the meantime, there is always an opportunity to volunteer and a need for volunteers at the PADS shelter. Volunteers are needed everyday for all hours between 9:00am and 9:00pm. Please contact Sheila Bator, Volunteer Coordinator, at sbator@aol.com or at 773.737.7070, ext. 320, to sign up.