Nonprofit helps folks prepare for the unexpected

When most people think of emergency preparedness, they think canned food, bottled water and generators — but what about preparing for emergencies and crises not involving the weather?

Brenda Moody, assistant director of Parks and Recreation for Winter Park, said often most people, including herself, are not prepared to handle unexpected situations involving personal or loved ones’ health. You call 911; arrive at the hospital and then what?

In 2010, Moody’s husband was diagnosed with an advanced stage of lung cancer. She was completely unprepared as she spent his remaining days with him in hospice.

“I literally had nothing with me, and the last thing you want to do is leave their side to get the things you need,” she said. “The hospice buildings take care of the people spending their last days, but they don’t provide for the families that are staying.”

From this train of thought, in June of this year, the Gathering Hope Foundation was formed. From toiletries to blankets, Moody wants to provide families in need with the basic things to make it through emergencies like hers, without having to leave their loved one’s side.

The foundation now gathers these essentials and wraps them in baskets to be delivered to local hospice care centers, Ronald McDonald Houses, and other shelters where people are in need, with the goal of each basket providing enough basic products for a person to be able to live for a week without having to go out for more.

“Originally we were just going to do hospice, but we saw such a great need and it just kind of grew,” Moody said. “Our main focus is just helping people.”

Finding funds

The Gathering Hope Rummage Sale will be held Saturday, Oct. 22, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 4325 Ivey Glen Ave., Orlando, FL 32826. For more information on the event and the foundation, visit gatheringhopefoundation.org

So far the organization has donated 215 individually wrapped baskets filled with everything from unused hotel samples of soap and shampoo to donated puzzle books and magazines. But the things they don’t get donated are paid for out of pocket by volunteers, said Dawn Payment, inventory and event management coordinator for Gathering Hope.

“Right now everything is very hands on,” Payment said. “We collect sample size stuff and all the products that go inside either we buy or people donate.”

Moody and Payment said they’ve become mini versions of the Extreme Couponers seen on TV as they fight early morning shopping crowds to buy the supplies they need in bulk when there’s a sale.

“We were all over the back-to-school sales,” Payment said. “We bought hundreds of crayons for the kid baskets, but now we’re running out and raising money to buy more.”

To raise money for more supplies, the Gathering Hope Foundation is holding a Rummage Sale on Saturday, Oct. 22.

“If we could just raise a couple hundred dollars, you don’t realize how far it can go…. With this it really doesn’t take a lot of money to help — the tiniest things can make a difference,” Moody said.

Giving back

The most important thing, Moody said, other than giving people the basics that they need, is making them feel good and special.

“We want it to be a personal gift,” she said. “The whole point is for it to be a special gift just for them, it’s not just things thrown in a basket.”

Lisa Blackwelder, director of development at the BETA Center of Orlando, which provides at-risk and teen moms a safe place to learn and care for their children, said when her girls received their baskets from Gathering Hope, “It was like Easter in September!”

The girls got baskets with brand new toiletries, magazines and nail polish — things Blackwelder said the girls often never receive, or if they do, are rarely new.

“When they do get new things, it’s typically for their children,” Blackwelder said. “For a stranger to think of them and give them these things, it was really special.”

Moody and Payment’s goal for Gathering Hope is that people realize this power of giving and the little things that can have such an impact on others, and for them to also realize that there is a need for the spirit of giving all year round — not just during the holidays.

“Who would have thought,” Payment asked, “that toothpaste and toothbrushes could make people so happy?”