Annual HomeAid Inland Empire Essentials For Young Lives Campaign To Collect Baby Care Items For Homeless Children

RIVERSIDE, CA, March 01, 2014 (Press-News.org) The 5th Annual HomeAid Inland Empire Essentials For Young Lives campaign, a community outreach effort to collect much-needed baby care items for infants and toddlers who reside in homeless shelters throughout San Bernardino and Riverside counties, will take place March 3-23.

The goal for this year's Essentials campaign is to collect more than 12,000 baby care items that will be distributed to eight HomeAid Inland Empire service provider partners that offer shelter facilities and services for homeless families and single women with children.

Businesses, community organizations and individuals are invited to participate in the drive by collecting essential baby items including disposable diapers, baby wipes, baby food and baby hygiene products, as well as paper products like paper towels, toilet paper and tissues.

Bank of America will be the primary sponsor of this year's Essentials For Young Lives collection campaign. In addition to providing funding, Bank of America employee volunteers will be collecting baby care items during the three-week event, and will help inventory and distribute the items collected.

Other HomeAid Inland Empire corporate partners participating in the Essentials campaign will be US Bank, Union Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, KB Home, Stearns Lending, Developers Edge, 123 Home Keys/All Southern California Escrow and Stater Bros. Markets, as well as the Baldy View and Riverside County Chapters of the Southern California Building Industry Association (BIA).

HomeAid Inland Empire Board and Executive Committee member Deborah Kristianto of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage will be the 2014 Essentials campaign chairman, with Kaytee Lett of Prospect Mortgage and a HAIE Board member assisting her as co-chairman.

Essentials For Young Lives collection boxes will be located at several bank branches and other business offices throughout the Inland Empire, as well as at Frank Augustus Miller Middle School in Riverside. All of the baby care items collected will be warehoused and inventoried at Sunrise Custom Storage in Riverside.

Among the HomeAid Inland Empire homeless shelter service provider partners receiving the Essentials baby care item donations from this year's collection campaign are: Mary's Mercy Center's Veronica's Home and Mary's Table charity operations in San Bernardino; Path of Life Ministries' Family and King Hall shelter facilities in Riverside; Project T.O.U.C.H. in Temecula; Foothill Family Shelter in Upland; Inland Empire Rescue Mission in Corona, Valley Restart Shelter in Hemet, Lutheran Social Services (LSS) Genesis House and Amelia's Light Community Care Centers in Riverside; and Operation Grace in San Bernardino.

"The volunteer and collection location response from our corporate partners for this year's Essentials For Young Lives community outreach event has been tremendous. We have over 200 volunteers and nearly 100 collection box locations involved in the program," said Ray Osborne, Executive Director of HomeAid Inland Empire. "Because of this outstanding support, we are able to heighten awareness of the increasing number of young children who are being impacted by the continuing homeless situation that exists in the Riverside and San Bernardino two-county area," he added.

For more information about the HomeAid Inland Empire Essentials For Young Lives collection campaign, please contact the HAIE Executive Director Ray Osborne at ray@homeaidie.org or Stephanie Ligenfelter, HAIE Marketing Coordinator, at stephanie@homeaidie.org. You can also call 951/686-0628 or visit the organization's website at homeaidie.org to volunteer or make a donation.

HomeAid Inland Empire is a non-profit organization that helps build new lives for homeless men, women and children in San Bernardino and Riverside counties by working with various service provider partners to renovate or build emergency and transitional living shelter facilities.