by Noella Noelophile®
Can Justin Rudd’s Community Action Team do it?
As a 501c3 nonprofit, they’ve always set the bar high. Yearly, they sponsor more than sixty community-building events, in Long Beach. An old-fashioned “Kids’ Bike Parade” on July fourth, the “Howl’oween Dog Parade” and their monthly “Beach Cleanup” are just three of many.
And this Easter, as they host their fifteenth “Operation Easter Basket” in Long Beach, they’ve set the highest goal yet.
They’re aiming at providing 3,500 Easter baskets for underprivileged youth, ages birth to sixteen years.
Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday morning, Justin and company will be in the Fellowship Hall of Bayshore Church in Long Beach. And their purposeful activity would be the envy of any Easter bunny.
Assembly-line style, they’ll be creating baskets and lining them up by age group.
Donors will be dropping off baskets they’ve created, each with a value of $20-25.
Community nonprofits will be stopping by to pick up the baskets, which C.A.T. provides to them for free. These baskets will be distributed on Easter Sunday to young recipients at the local Boys and Girls Club, Long Beach Rescue Mission, and the YMCA, among others.
And if you have the time, Community Action Team would love to have your assistance.
Looking at their “wish list”, they still need: chocolate bunnies for the baskets; marker sets (remember how much fun those were to draw with when we were kids?); infant socks and booties; boxes of full-size candy bars and socks for teens. At this point, they also have room for about seven more volunteers to help assemble Easter baskets on Wednesday morning, starting at 11 am.
That figure of 3,500 Easter baskets represents a jump (and a hop?), even from last year’s Operation Easter Basket, when the goal was 2.900 baskets.
So, can Justin Rudd and Community Action Team make their goal of 3,500 baskets for Easter, 2019?
I’ll let you know on Friday. But no Easter bunny in his or her right mind would bet against them.