GO Month 2023

Get Ready for GO! (Get Organized!) Month – January 20, 2023!

January is Get Organized & Be Productive Month, an annual initiative sponsored by NAPO. GO! Month celebrates how NAPO members improve the lives of their clients by helping them create environments that support productivity, general health, and well-being.

NAPO-CT — GO! Month History

NAPO-CT has a tradition of celebrating GO! Month by collecting and donating items to benefit some of the great charity organizations in our communities. Over the years, we’ve collected books for Read to Grow; clothing for Big Brothers/Big Sisters; sporting equipment for SKORE; craft supplies for EcoWorks; food for food pantries; and most recently, a huge coat drive! As a group, we have been known to “knock it out of the park” when it comes to collecting a truly staggering amount of items in need and distributing them to appreciative organizations for distribution!

AND, 2023 was no different as we partnered with HOPE 4:10 a grass-roots organization in Manchester, CT (see history below). Among many things, Hope 4:10 provides those in need with cleaning supplies and personal care products through their “Free Clean Fridays.”

Not only did we have the opportunity to gather needed items over several months, but HOPE 4:10 invited us to volunteer with them on the afternoon of January 20 to assemble bags for distribution and help distribute these bags of needed items to their clients. This was a fun group activity as the photos below show smiling faces and tables laden with donated items.

Why Hope 4:10?

NAPO-CT GO Month 2023 partnership with Hope 4:10 was exciting for several reasons:

It supports a great cause
It’s a NEW category of items for us to collect
It is hard to find places that will accept donations of cleaning supplies and personal care products, especially those that have been opened and are not brand new. HOPE 4:10 accepts these!

How great to get these useful items to those that need them, and divert them from the landfill. A WIN, WIN, WIN!!

A note from HOPE 4:10

We, at Hope 4:10, would love to partner with NAPO-CT to collect
(even opened containers) of the following products:

Napkins
Paper towels
Tissues
Toilet Paper
Toilet bowl cleaner
All-purpose cleaners–Lysol or Fabuloso
Sponges
Lysol wipes
Dish-washing liquid
Laundry detergent
Dishwasher detergent (Cascade etc)

Liquid hand soap
Ziploc baggies, saran wrap and tinfoil
Shampoo & conditioner
Bar soap or body wash
Toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash
Feminine products
Razors and shaving cream
Deodorant (this should be new)
Q-tips
Body lotion
Sunscreen

HOPE 4:10 History

HOPE 4:10 began when Darcy (the current Director of HOPE 4:10) and two male colleagues were asked to help a single Mom with nine children find new housing. The family was continuously getting evicted from their apartments because having nine children in the home broke the fire code. She realized their level of poverty was dire and began helping them with great HOPE 4 the 10 of them to break out of the poverty cycle and thrive in life.

HOPE 4:10 was born in 2016 and has grown to over 700 members on a private Facebook page where goods are freely exchanged, jobs are posted, social service agency help is directed and people are encouraged to take the next step. From our time helping Sophia and her children, we learned a lot! One thing that stuck with us was that people who are on government assistance programs like SNAP can only receive food — and they struggle more with trying to buy personal hygiene and cleaning supplies than they do with getting food. That is why Hope 4:10 holds FREE CLEAN FRIDAYS (usually held on the 3rd Friday of every other month), where bags are assembled and filled with items such as hand soap, napkins, toilet bowl cleaner, shampoo, body wash/bar soap, etc. Then people in need who have signed up (currently 55 families) can drive through and pick up their bags of goodies.

HOPE 4:10 operates the FREE CLEAN FRIDAYS out of the Trinity Covenant Church back parking lot at 302 Hackmatack Street in Manchester, CT