Peggy McGee
The Women of Quail Creek and the staff at the VA Hospital in Tucson extend their sincere thanks to the residents of Quail Creek for their outpouring of donations for the homeless veterans in the Tucson area. When the 18 volunteers, including spouses of TWOQC members arrived, the morning air was chilly, but as the cars lined up the helpers quickly warmed up as they unloaded cars and began the sorting and bagging process. This year, in addition to warm clothing, we asked for donations of items needed for veterans moving into housing such as bed and kitchen linens, vacuum cleaners, trash cans, paper and cleaning products. How generously Quail Creek residents responded!
Before the official starting time on October 26, thanks to the creative talents of Fran Muller, Ann Nease, Ruth McDermott and Gail Garrison, we had already received 226 handmade hats and scarves for both male and female veterans and $389.00 in cash. This amount plus a carload of clothing came from members of Karen Baker’s yoga classes. Total cash donations of $756.00 were almost triple our 2012 efforts after we told residents that the funds would be used to move homeless veterans into transitional housing, coupled with the fact that of the 2670 homeless veterans in the Tucson area, 374 had recently served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the end we delivered over 3000 articles of clothing and other items including backpacks, linens and cleaning supplies to the VA Hospital. Residents also donated 115.2 lbs. of grooming items. It took seven large vehicles filled to the point that seeing out of the rearview mirror was almost impossible to carry all the contributions.
Once we unloaded all the donations with the help of VA staff, we were taken to the area where our donations would be temporarily stored. There would be no room for haircuts in the coming days since we filled the barbershop to overflowing. We were introduced to James A. Viscome, a veteran in the Compensated Work Therapy Program who works in the clothing closet of the Homeless Office. James is responsible for further sorting and storing all the donations. When we saw the well organized clothing distribution room that he stocked and maintained, several of the women wanted to take him home to rearrange their closets!