Winter can be a difficult season. From finding holiday meals and gifts, to shoveling snow and watching your energy consumption, it’s easy to feel stressed during colder months. And for families on a fixed budget, providing necessary winter gear like coats, hats, gloves, and boots for their children is not just an annoyance, but a real concern.
Since 2011, Peoples has partnered with the Salvation Army’s Project Bundle-Up to help warm the bodies and hearts of children across our region. Our volunteers take annual shopping trips with groups of children to provide these essential items and create lasting memories.
This past winter, a volunteer army of 81 Peoples employees and their families took to stores like Boscov’s in Butler and Johnstown, Walmart in North Versailles, and Kohl’s in Robinson and West Mifflin so 97 children could pick winter outerwear that fits their own personal interests and styles.
Project Bundle-Up, created in 1986, believes that new winter clothing provides more than just physical warmth, it also raises a child’s self-esteem, and makes children feel that they are cared for and important when attending their shopping trips. Peoples’ Project Bundle-Up coordinator Bev Wogan agrees.
“The children who attend these shopping trips have so much fun and enjoy the attention they receive from our volunteers,” she said.
And it’s not just the children who leave with smiles on their faces.
“The volunteers also have fun,” Wogan said. “They leave the event with joyful hearts.”
Peoples customers, too, can join in the joy of giving and brightening a child’s world this winter by making a donation to Project Bundle-Up through their online donation portal.
Additionally, Peoples customers who would like to apply to receive aid through Project Bundle-Up for their children can do so by contacting their local Salvation Army.
Project Bundle-Up serves a wide age range, from infants to teens, and eligibility for the program is based on economic need, the examination of a family’s monthly bills and income, the number of children in the family, and employment status. Our volunteers were proud to once again help children in our area stay warm this winter through this meaningful partnership.