Grosse Ile Rotary Club - Vista Marie Welcome Bag Project

Vista Maria is Michigan’s largest non-profit residential and community-based treatment agency for abused and neglected girls. Founded in 1883 by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, we serve girls ages 11-17 from across Michigan who are in need of treatment for mental health, substance abuse, trauma recovery, and other psychosocial issues. . It is located on West Warren in Dearborn Heights.

VM's Manager of Volunteer Resources, Wendy Kearney made a club presentation about Vista Marie, which was done six or so months ago. The club was interested in doing something and Wendy and Joanne came up with the "Welcome Bag", as frequently the young women arrive with only "the cloths on their backs" and nothing more. Joanne Medved presented this idea to our board, where PDG Bob Sanchez recognized the project as something worthy of the special a matching District Simplified Grant from DG Jennifer Jones.

These bags are made up in a variety of sizes, for the clothing parts, and the same for the rest of the stuff. One will be given to newly arrived
girls, to help them get going. Each bag has a sticker mentioning our club, as the source.

Joanne coordinated gathering of the items for the bag, some were donated and some were purchased. The local Target, Wal-Mart and Kmart were wonderful.

Once we set out the parts for the bag and following our meeting this past Thursday, all the members and guests "walked the tables" and filled the bags with the listed contents. Bob is delivering the bags to VM soon.

Grosse Ile Rotary Club is the first Rotary Club that has worked with VM, to Wendy's recollection. She's been there for thirteen years.

Maybe other local Rotary Clubs might be interested in learning more about VM. Wendy is very open to visiting clubs with a VM presentation and letting them know about VM. It is a very worthy organization and needs all the help it can get. Promoting our project on the District 6400 web site may help in that introductory effort.

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