Easter Weekend Starts…Now

by Noella Noelophile®

If you’re in the Long Beach, California area, you’re invited to start celebrating Easter today.At 9:00 this morning, Justin Rudd’s nonprofit “Community Action Team” begins collecting Easter baskets for charity, in their twelfth annual “Operation Easter Basket”. And they need volunteers, as well as supplies. Here’s a link to their “wish list”, if you’d like to help.This year’s goal: 2,600 baskets, for youngsters in need, ages newborn to sixteen years.

Justin and company will be onsite at Bay Shore Community Congregational Church, in the Belmont Shore area, from 9 this morning till 4 this afternnon. They also collected and assembled baskets yesterday. And here are a few pictures of what’s likely to be going on, based on last year’s “Operation Easter Basket” activity.Last year, thirty-one different community organizations picked up baskets for distribution to underprivileged families. Among the groups Operation Easter Basket served were Long Beach BLAST’s Northpointe Housing Project, NAACP and Shields for Families, Inc., according to Justin’s website.While a number of volunteers will be dropping off completed baskets to donate, “Operation Easter Basket” will need additional supplies as volunteers assemble additional baskets to give. This year, Justin has emailed that they especially need: full-size bottles of shampoo and body wash, as well as markers (art supplies are a popular basket item!). In addition, socks, for the smaller children, are needed. If you’d like to donate, you’re welcome to come by Bay Shore church and drop off any of these–or any of the items on the “wish list”.Would you like to have fun while supporting a great community? Operation Easter Basket is looking for people who can donate at least two volunteer hours, Thursday or Friday, to help them assemble the baskets, as well as help carry them out as organizations come by to pick them up.