As the temperatures drop, staff member Beth Meko and two friends are heating up their efforts to collect blankets for the needy in Knoxville.
Project Warmth is part of Community Care, an organization started by Meko and friends Kymberle Kaser and Ashley McMahan, which practices deliberate acts of kindness in the community, including providing necessities to the city’s less fortunate population
“For the wintertime, we are focusing on blankets,” said Meko, a grant writer for the Center for Information and Communications Studies in the College of Communication and Information. “If you have any rarely used blankets around your house, this is a great way to see that they will go to the cause of keeping someone in need warm over the winter.”
Community Care is an independent group that tries to help people who, for whatever reason, aren’t being assisted by other charity organizations.
“We gather the donations and then about once a month go to areas in Knoxville where homeless or otherwise disadvantaged people normally gather, and hand them out,” Meko said. “We handed out blankets for the first time last month, and the response was staggering. The blankets were gone in about five minutes and there was so much gratitude from everyone.”
There is a box outside Room 476 in the Communications Building. There is also a box in front of the Three Rivers Market, and the BreadHeads booth will be collecting blankets on Saturday, December 20, at the Holiday Market in Market Square.