It's Our First Blogiversary

In the blogging world, the anniversary of the start (birth) of a blog is known as the "blogiversary" One year ago today, May 30, 2011, the Wish Closet Blog was started. Since then, there have been 20 posts and we have had 695 visitors view the blog!

While most of the visitors are from Brantford, we have also had visitors from Kitchener, London, Fenelon Falls, Toronto, Port Dover, Burlington, Waterloo, Ancaster, Barrie, Guelph, Caledon, Hamilton, Markham, Kenora, Orangeville, Cambridge and Strathroy.

The most popular pages have been the Teen Parenting posts, the Cool to Be Kind post, Logan's Leadership post, Giving Back post and the Cooking Class posts. These round out the top 5. Ultimately THE most popular page for people to land on is the homepage with whatever the most current post is, these other five have been re-visited.

Here's to the next year, with more posts and more people becoming aware of the vital role each of you play in providing this much needed service in our community. Well done, Wish Team!!

Major B is a Hub of Activity

Major B was a busy active place on Monday night. The last Monday of each month is Cooking Class.

The Cooking Classes are run in partnership with Grand River Health, Community Food Advisors. These volunteers are on hand each month to teach kids and adults alike how to prepare healthy snacks with seasonal foods. This month's seasonal food was rhubarb and the recipe was rhubarb crisp.

The other item on the menu was meatballs. The kids LOVED digging in the raw meat, pinching and rolling, first to blend the ingredients and then to form the meatballs.

The Cooking Classes take place in the Community Room. Happening across the hall at the same time is the Wish Closet. This pairing is ideal in that it allows families to access two important services at the same time.

This Monday was no ordinary Monday for the Wish Closet. It was the bi-annual visit by the Teen Parenting Program. This program offers shopping nights to the teen parenting group and is co-ordinated to fall after the bi-annual garage sales of the Multiples N More group. This allows the teens to get great quality items that would otherwise be too expensive for them to purchase for their babes on their limited income.

On Monday night the Wish Closet hosted 12 teen moms and 5 young dads who were able to shop for their children while their children were safe and supervised in the Best Start room down the hall. In addition to the items the parents shopped for, each mom was given a special gift bag full of products that would otherwise be out of their budget.

And of course, there were the usual raffle prizes available as well.

The sense of community is alive and well at Major B. As is often the case, Major B was a hub of activity.

Our Pledge Your Pennies Promotion

In the last federal budget, the government announced it was stopping production of the penny. Instead of throwing out your pennies or instead of throwing them in a jar in hopes that they will be worth something in 50 years, we are asking you to pledge your pennies to the Wish Closet.

Please scoop your pennies into a bag and drop them into the Wish Closet the next time you are in to shop, visit or donate other items. We will roll them if you can't and will use them to purchase much needed items for the Wish Closet.

Remember every penny counts. No donation is too small. Together we CAN make a difference.