This week we hear from Bethany who is very passionate about her organization, Bethany’s Happy Bags for the Homeless. Learn all about what she does and they ways she is helping her community!
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Bethany cares deeply about her community and the environment. At the age of 5 she saw a homeless man holding up a sign. As she sat crying in her mom's car, she asked if she could break open her piggy bank and give him all of her money. Together they came up with a plan and Bethany's Happy Bags was born. What originally started with quart sized bags of snacks quickly turned into gallon sized bags packed with food and personal hygiene items. Today Bethany's bags include a drink, pack of wipes, mask, beef stick, tuna or chicken pack, fruit cup, crackers, Bombas socks, a homemade first aid kit and many other items. Most of the bags are being packed by the students at The Matthew Reardon Center for Autism which is a local school for students on the Autism spectrum. Packing bags helps teach them valuable skills such as working with others, communication, inventory and paying attention to detail. These are skills they will be able to utilize in their daily lives and at future jobs. The Happy Bags are distributed through the Savannah Police Department as well as several other local agencies and organizations. To date she has given out over 3,000 bags!
She also stays active in her community by helping out monthly at a local food pantry, packing boxes of food at America's Second Harvest and picking up litter in her city.