Mark your calendars for March 24–“24 Hours of GRACE–to help build a new Donation Station.
On Tuesday, March 24 the annual “24 Hours of GRACE” campaign will ask you to help us build a new Donation Station. For five years, your gifts during “24 Hours of GRACE” have helped fund GRACE Transitional Housing, the Community Clinic, the Food Pantry, and all of the other programs and services at GRACE.
A new Donation Station will do the exact same thing. Donation Station supplies clothing, shoes, coats, bedding, and blankets for the GRACE Clothing Room that serves an average of 3,600 clients each year. Housewares, furniture, and clothing go to the GRACE Transitional Housing program, as well as other clients as the needs arise.
Remaining donations are delivered to three GRACE resale stores, or sold to vendors in bulk. In the last five years, net revenues from resale stores have funded 25% of the total direct costs of GRACE services for clients.
This “24 Hours of GRACE” is your chance to do the very most good for the people GRACE serves. We also ask for you to be a campaigner for GRACE and spread the word about “24 Hours of GRACE” and the need for a new Donation Station to your friends!
Nearly everyone you talk to about this will be familiar with the need. On any given day at GRACE Donation Station, hundreds of donors pull off the heavily-traveled street that is in close proximity to Grapevine Middle School, popular restaurants, and neighborhoods.
On peak days, cars can line up onto Scribner Road, and may extend out to Northwest Highway. To exit Donation Station, donors maneuver a hazardous hairpin driveway and avoid large trash dumpsters and delivery trucks before re-entering the heavily-traveled street.
Since March 2019, an average of 3,650 donors drive through Donation Station each month, equal to 140 cars per day, or one car every 4½ minutes. The volume of donors through Donation Station has increased 67% in just the last few years. In recent months, the volume of cars per day has peaked at over 200.
A new Donation Station will offer a better location for donors and volunteers to help serve those in need.
We hope to build on the past success of “24 Hours of GRACE”, and we can reach even more people with your help.
On Monday, March 23, you will receive a post from our Chief Executive Officer Shonda Schaefer. You will be asked to donate to help build a new GRACE Donation Station. Sometime during the following day, Tuesday, March 24, please use the link to make a contribution.
Then, please send a link to your friends, and tell them you have made a gift to help build a new Donation Station for GRACE. The success of past “24 Hours of GRACE” efforts was due, in very large part, to the efforts of donors like you who helped the campaign go “viral.”
A new Donation Station would provide a larger, more accessible location to meet our current and future needs in receiving and processing donations.
We have found a place on Texan Trail that fits our needs. Even with its current configuration, the location offers numerous single- and double-door entrances, two loading docks, and forklift access to lower-level storage within the building.
The site experiences good traffic flow, but it is not the constant large volume of traffic at the current site on Scribner Road and Northwest Highway.
Renovations within the building will provide space for sorting and tagging, storage, testing, offices, a break room, rest rooms, and other needs. An attached warehouse facility onsite provides needed storage for resale seasonal inventory, boxed clothing, operational supplies, and event materials.
GRACE needs your help now more than ever—a new Donation Station will help continue the GRACE mission well into the future. When “24 Hours of GRACE” arrives on March 24, please give generously and ask your friends to do the same.
As with all aspects of the GRACE, we will only be able to do this with your help. We are just at the start of this campaign to build a new Donation Station. You will hear much more about this as the campaign shifts into high gear.
If you are interested in a tour, or just knowing more about the why’s and how’s, please email Mark Woolverton, or call 817-305-4654.
