Blankets for Beds

Blankets for Beds Recognition

/ northcoastrotary

North Coast Rotary thanks  ALCC President Marty O’Donnell and the Avon Lake Community Council (ALCC) for its recent award of Project of the Year in partnership with Ridge Cleaners.  Marty presented the award to Rotarian Cathy Pugh.  Cathy accepted on behalf of Joe Matuscak who developed the idea of cleaning and sanitizing gently used blankets for those in need.  Ridge Cleaners Owner Lisa Sebastian immediately volunteered to clean and sanitize them absorbing the cost.  

Cathy Pugh and Lisa Sebastian also received Congratulations from Representative Joe Miller on behalf of the members of the House of Representatives, and a Proclamation of Recognition and Congratulations from Avon Lake Mayor Mark A. Spaetzel. The Blankets for Beds project is ongoing. Our thanks to our most recent donors from Good Neighbors Thrift Shop, Vermilion Schools Interact group and the Sheffield Lake and Lorain Offices GenFed Financial Credit Union.

NWS Volunteers partner on Blankets for Beds Project

/ jinnyn

Over the past several months Rotary obtained hundreds of imperfect blankets vacuum sealed in bags of 5 – 8 blankets each.  They were donated by a Groveport, Ohio manufacturer.  New Westsider Club-Volunteers joined Rotarians on four different occasions to unpack, sort for cleaning, sewing or good for the animal shelter. All the immediately usable ones were rewrapped to be distributed to organizations helping those in need. Dozens of imperfect blankets required hours of additional sewing repair and again volunteers from New Westsiders accepted the challenge. 

Sixty-five blankets were distributed at the Homeless Stand Down at Sacred Heart Church in South Lorain last week. “Thank you for the blankets, they were wonderful. All of them were gone before the end of the Stand Down!” wrote an organizer of the Lorain County Taskforce for the Homeless (it’s 10th annual event). 

We couldn’t have done this without the help of New Westsider volunteers – Thank you!

Blankets for Beds Thank You and Keep Them Coming!

/ jinnyn

Thank you to the many people who have donated blankets gently used or new – please keep them coming!  Just recently 75 Blankets were delivered to Neighborhood Alliance.  A continuing thank you to Ridge Cleaners who cleans, sanitizes and wraps each blanket, and to the French Creek Family Y for providing temporary storage!

For your convenience, The Avon Lake Public Library and Moe’s Southwest Grill in Avon along with other organizations have agreed to be collection points. And you can always drop blankets off at Ridge Cleaners. 

Blankets for Beds – May 2023 Update

/ jinnyn

As of the beginning of May, Ridge Cleaners had provided hundreds of clean, sanitized blankets to Blessing House, Neighborhood Alliance and the Good Knights organizations. 

The Blankets for Beds campaign began March 1st.  Community members generously donated new and gently used blankets, and these donations are continuing every week.  300+ Blankets were donated by two Avon Lake School organizations and the Sheffield/Sheffield Lake schools are in the midst of a district-wide collection finishing up this month.  

As blankets are cleaned and sanitized, they will be distributed to participating organizations.

Photo: Lisa Sebastian, Owner and President Ridge Cleaners and staff members