BREAKING NEWS!
Our DeAnza Lions Club received a lovely “Certificate of Appreciation” from Project Linus for our contributions to this wonderful cause!
Project Linus Fall 2020
During this time of isolation, time seems to have come to a slow crawl. It was sad watching the calendar change while our Lion community was able to do less and less service. Trying to come up with a way to get us together and to serve, an idea came. Maybe we could try a Project Linus Zoom event. It could be a chance for us to see each other via Zoom outside of “a Club Meeting” where we could chat and make a blanket for children in need. Community and community service! Most of our Club members have seen and participated in a Blanketeering evening at least once over the last ten years so it seemed a comfortable and natural way to go.
The process was old and new. We gathered the fleece during a Labor Day 60% sale and got a teacher to Joann Fabrics with her ID so our discount could be even greater. We were able to purchase 73 fleeces within our budget. We figured out a way to make a kit filled with almost all the necessary items to send home to participants, observing the COVID 19 recommendations of no contact. Then things changed dramatically! A Club member and Girl Scout Troop leader reached out to her troop, another troop and her elementary school and invited them to join us in this community service project. All organizations said yes. When the sign-up deadline arrived, we had 60 new people signed up to participate with us. We had to go back to Joann’s to buy 40 more pieces of fleece in order to fit the need. (Expenses were covered by the other organizations so DAL could stay within our annual budget.)
Event day arrived on September 19th. More than twenty onlookers were signed on (14 of whom were Scouts and students!) as we proceeded to make our blankets. Lion Leslye tried to provide some guidance and answer questions as we all followed the instructions provided by Project Linus. Then Blanketeers began announcing that they had completed their blankets!! With every announcement, the cowbell was rung to keep up the DAL tradition set by young, future-Lion, Eli Erickson a few years back. (I don’t know if online participants could hear it but it was pretty noisy at the house as the bell rang recognizing everyone’s success.) We were online for about two hours and we got great, positive feedback from those who completed the survey we sent out (what a huge relief!).
The greatest news is that we delivered 114 blankets to Project Linus! We should all be so excited. This is the most Cupertino DAL has ever donated after one Blanketeering event and it is all because of you all for having trust in the vision and wanting to be a part of community service once more. We also have to give a special shout-out to Lion Claire who had the foresight to reach out and include the perfect organizations to partner with us in this project. By the way, our blankets will most likely be going to local fire victims so we should also be proud knowing we might have been able to help our little neighbors in need if only with a warm, fuzzy blanket.
