The Pajama Drive ends today. Be sure to drop-off your donations!
There was frost on the cars when I woke up this morning, and I was grateful the radiators were keeping the house warm. Sure, we had to dig out the ice scrapers and the bathroom floor was c-o-l-d, but my family was warm, and we were safe.
There are many families in DC’s foster care system who aren’t so lucky. Hill resident Kathleen Jackson knows. She’s an adoptive mom of three boys, who prior to joining her family were in the DC Child and Family Services foster care program. PJs have a special place in Kathleen’s heart.
“When I got my kids, none of them had ever had pajama’s and certainly not new ones. I still remember my oldest prancing around our home the night he moved in with me and I gave him his first set of new pajamas,” she recently posted on the Mothers on the Hill (MOTH) listserve, along with a request for the community to match their energies and efforts around her pajama drive again this year.
For the second year she’s pulling out the stops with the DC Holiday Pajama Drive and donors from the neighborhoods and beyond are on track for hitting the goal of 500 sets to give to kids who are placed in foster care short or long term. As of Friday, 417 sets are ready for distribution, for the littlest sleepers to teens. She’s also been given hats, mittens, scarves, slippers and socks. There’s a real need for PJs for older kids, and since there are 30 percent more boys in the foster care system.
Donations of new pajamas — in clear plastic bags with the size marked — can be dropped of at Metro Mutt at 508 H Street, NE, Evolve Property Management at 1344 H Street NE, and the private home, located at 1718 E Street, SE.
Today (Tuesday) is the last day to submit donations, so pick-up those PJs and drop them off today!