Benton Franklin – A Day of Giving

Employees at Career Path Services don’t limit giving back to the community to our annual Make-A-Difference Day. One such story involves our team in the Benton Franklin offices who spent the day working directly with the local homeless population. The story follows below:

We recently were able to purchase 50 bags and fill them with goodies to give to our local homeless community. BF Program staff and GRS staff pooled the $100 available per staff to pay for these items. We were able to fill these bags with toothbrushes, toothpastes, wet wipes, hygiene pads, socks, blankets, hand warmers and gift cards for food. We had a wonderful time bonding while putting the bags together and later a group  drove around the Tri cities to deliver them. We had a few bags left, but we were able to connect with another group to have them deliver3ed. We had no difficulty finding those in need.

The responses we received while delivering were so heartwarming:

• “You are angels from heaven”
• “Have a blessed day”
• “Thank you so much!”

We met with a number of individuals who were grateful for the assistance:

• A Vietnam Veteran who had lost all his teeth and wanted to return to work. The local church was helping him obtain his birth certificate so he had proper identification to return to work.
• We came upon a homeless camp in Kennewick. It was hidden by a ministry and buildings. We spoke with a young man who was going through the dumpster. He talked about wanting to get into Job Corps and his struggles of living on the streets.
• A young women who looked like she was pregnant was very thankful for the feminine hygiene and food cards that we gave her. Her husband spoke about being on 2 strikes and needing to overcome those background barriers to find employment with 7 children to feed.
• A group of men gathered together behind a Mexican bakery in downtown Pasco. They were very grateful to receive the bags of goodies and thanked us repeatedly.

Thank you to Career Path Services for offering this opportunity to do a little something extra to make our hearts feel full and keep us humble in life!”