Count your blessings, share your blessings.

We are have been blessed, each and everyday we are blessed with a house to call a home, a plate of warm food, planing outings and much more. Of course there is also the little things we can sometimes take for granted: a hot shower or even a bath, toilet paper and a bathroom to use, toothbrushes and toothpaste, there are lots of little things we don't realize that are a blessing and how fortunate we are to have. Have you ever thought how blessed you are? yes we are going through financial issues, but we are still very  fortunate.

Today my family and I had were reminded of all these blessings and of how thankful we should be. It was a humbling experience.

Over the weekend we cleaned out our home of clothes we hadn't used, shoes and toys that we no longer use. We decided that we would donate them, but had no idea where. All we knew is that we wanted it to go directly to individuals that need them. Not a thrift store, don't get me wrong we are not against thrift or second hand stores it's just we wanted to be able to help people that are in need. So we took it upon ourselves to search the Internet for homeless shelters that are local. We did find several, but one in particular caught our attention Alpha Project have you ever heard of them?

Alpha Project is a non-profit organization that serves more than 5,000 people a day! at their Neil Good Day Center they serve 500 people allowing them to shower, wash their clothes, eat some snacks in addition roughly 5,000 homeless people receive their mail at this location!

The organization also serves families providing them with work, recovery and support services. The also provide independent living through education and employment, they have more than 700 units of rental housing projects.

So after reviewing their website and calling them early this morning we were told to drop-off all donations at their Neil Good Day Center located downtown San Diego. We loaded up our car and as we arrived and parked at their main entrance Bob McElroy -President/CEO of Alpha Project- greeted us and thanked us for our donation. Staff members began unloading our car and each time they came for another bag of clothes they thanked us.

If you would like to help, here is a list of items they need that you can donate:

• Water bottles
• Personal items (shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, ponytail holders,etc)
• Feminine products (sanitary pads, tampons, etc)
• Laundry items (laundry detergent)
• Prepackaged snacks (cookies, granola bars)
• Peanut butter (to spread on the bread they receive as donations)
• Towels
• Pillows
• Blankets

For more ideas on what to donate and how to help log on to http://alphaproject.org/ and click on the tab that says "ways to help".

This post is meant to help Alpha Project and support their cause, in addition we hope that with sharing this information and our experience you will also be inspired to help your local community. Yes there are many ways to help around the globe, however if we start locally we then can continue to help globally.

Thank you Alpha Project and Bob for helping others and teaching us about sharing!