Tag Archives: chs

A Good Reason to Clean Out Your Closet Before Christmas

For the past few years, I have been part of a group of Pittsburgh bloggers who have helped the Pittsburgh nonprofit Community Human Services aka CHS raise money for their holiday gift project.  One of the things that I have learned about CHS is that they provide many important services to Pittsburghers who don’t fit into other social service programs.  The same holds true for the holiday gifts.  The money raised from the CHS Holiday Gift Project goes to CHS to provide a little holiday gift to the people who likely don’t fit into other holiday gift programs which are usually for kids or seniors.

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This year, we’re getting a little bit of a head start with a new idea for fundraising with ThredUp.  ThredUp is an online store that sells new and used women and kids clothing.  ThredUp will buy your extra clothes, as long as they are in good condition, and will donate the money to CHS.  I have sent several ThredUp cleanout bags back to ThredUp over the past year, and I have ordered from the ThredUp shop many times.  So I thought it was time to try the ThredUp fundraising program.

If you have some extra clothes that you were thinking of donating, please order a free ThredUp clean out bag and donate to the CHS holiday gift project.  Order your free clean out bag today.  The whole process takes a few week – so the sooner you order a free cleanout bag, the sooner we can raise some $$$ for CHS.   (Any funds that come in after the holidays will also go to CHS).

How to Clean Out Your Closet and Support the CHS Holiday Gift Project

Photo of a ThredUp clean out bag from Broke and Beautiful's blog

Photo of a ThredUp clean out bag from Broke and Beautiful’s blog

  1. Visit the CHS Holiday Gift Project Group on ThredUp HERE.
  2. Enter your email address, name and password and click “Join This Group”
  3. Click the yellow “Order a Bag Button” – for the items that ThredUp doesn’t want – you can choose to have them donated to Goodwill or sent back to you for a small fee.
  4. Wait a few days… ThredUp will mail you a bag with a prepaid shipping label attached
  5. Clean out your closet and fill up the bag
  6. Send your your bag back to ThredUp – postage is already paid on the label
  7. ThredUp will make an offer for the items that they want and donate that amount to CHS

More Ways to Shop and Support CHS

If you are interested in other websites w online shopping on ThredUp or a similar site Twice.  Use the following links, for each person who signs up – I get a $10 credit.  I will be donating all of the referral credits from both ThredUp and Twice to CHS.

CHS Holiday Gift Project By The Numbers

  • Total Amount we need to raise in 2014 – $5000
  • Amount I hope we can raise from ThredUp – $1000
  • Number of Pittsburghers who I hope will send a bag to ThredUp – 50
  • Date of CHS Holiday Gift Project Party at Houghs – Thursday, December 11 (more details to come)

I will be blogging and Tweeting updates about the project between now and whenever we finish raising the $5000 – please help me spread the word by tweeting with #CHxmaS.

 

 

12 Giveaways of Pittsburgh #9-12: Portraits, Improv and Some of the Best Pgh Gear Around

I’m thrilled to post the last four items for the 12 Giveaways of Pittsburgh!  It has been so much fun to write about these businesses and share these items with you.  As I put this list together, I realizes that almost all of the owners of the businesses featured on this list I have met and become friends with because of IheartPGH.  Pittsburgh is filled with some amazing small business owners and I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to get to know these folks and share their businesses with the readers of IheartPGH.

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Giveaways 1-8

We’re keeping all of the giveaways open until the end of the week – so you still have time to enter.

Check out our previous posts for giveaways 1-8 and a bonus giveaway for pens tickets:

We’ve been working with several other bloggers to help Community Human Services raise money to provide small holiday gifts to the folks that they serve.  We still need to raise $1000 to make sure they are able to provide holiday gifts this Christmas.  Anyone who donates gets extra entries for the giveaways and a chance to win the great hockey tickets for the Penguins game on January 15, 2014.

Giveaways 9-12

#9. A Level-1 Improv Class at Steel City Improv ($249 value) – if you’ve ever wanted to learn to make people laugh – this is your chance!

#10. A Portrait Session from Noah Purdy Photography  Noah is an incredible photographer, who also donates his time to help CHS – check out his blog post about Pittsburgh Help Portrait here.

#11. A Pair of Pittsburgh socks from LineUp – because every Pittsburger should show their steel city pride on their feet.

#12. A $50 Gift Certificate from Garbella – Amy makes some of our favorite Pittsburgh t-shirts.  What can we say we’re partial to anything with a pierogi on it.   Amy screenprints all of her items by hand, here in Pittsburgh.

Enter to win one of these via the Rafflecopter widget below!  If you want to just contribute to CHS you can do that here.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Help Save Christmas & Pens Tickets Raffle

Here is the deal – for the past four years – we have joined with a group of bloggers to help the Pittsburgh non-profit Community Human Services – raise money for to provide holiday gifts for the people they serve.  Community Human Services, CHS – works with lots of Pittsburghers who often fall outside of the toy drives that provide gifts for kids and the elderly.

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2 Days to Raise $2200

In 2012 – we had a great response and raised $5000 – enough money so CHS could provide a small gift for an additional 200 people.  Earlier this week – it was brought to my attention that we have only raised HALF of what was raised last year.

I am determined to help CHS raise the remaining funds – we still need to raise $2200 so that they can provide some holiday cheer for everyone who was supported last year.

It would be great if we could get all of the funds collected by Sunday – that way there is still time to get the last gifts together for the Christmas holiday.

If you could give $10, $20 or even more to support CHS – we can reach this goal!  Click here to donate to Community Human Services online.

What about those Pens Tickets?

Thanks to a generous donor once we reach the $2500 mark – they will donate a pair of Pens tickets to be raffled off!  Every dollar donated to CHS gets you an entry to win.  The more you give the more chances you have to win!  But we have to raise at least $2500 – so make sure to spread the word.

2 Tickets & Parking Pass

Penguins vs. Washington Capitals 

Loge Box 21, Captain Morgan Club

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Donate to CHS and Enter to Win!

Every dollar donate to CHS on the Crowdrise page gets you an entry to win.  Use the widget below or click here to donate.

Fundraising Websites – Crowdrise

If you have already contributed to CHS – Thank You! You will be entered to win. Please tell your friends and help us spread the word.

Learn More about CHS

CHS was started in 1970 and is located in Oakland.  The organization serves all areas of the city and offers programs to prevent and reduce homelessness, runs mental health residential programs and runs a community food pantry. CHS has been named one of the best places to work in 2013 by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Visit the CHS website – http://www.chscorp.org/

12 Giveaways of Pittsburgh: #1-4

chs-squareFirst of all, I want to thank everyone who donated to the CHS (Community Human Services) Christmas Fundraiser this year and who attended the event at Hough’s earlier this month.  Your generosity this holiday season is greatly appreciated.  I’ve just heard back from the folks at CHS and we have only raised HALF of what is needed to make sure that each of the people they serve have a gift for the holiday.

For the past several years, I have joined with other Pittsburgh bloggers to support CHS holiday gift drive.  While all of the efforts to support worthy causes are important, CHS stands out for me because they serve many fellow Pittsburghers who don’t receive any holiday cheer from programs that cater to kids and seniors.

I was just about to share a blog post with my favorite Pittsburgh gifts – but I’m turning this into an opportunity for you to help CHS and to win some awesome Pittsburgh holiday gifts.  As of today CHS still needs to raise $2500 to save Christmas.  Currently we are only about 25% to the total goal!

Rather than just tell you about great Pittsburgh gifts, I’m going to give them all away! For the next 3 days – I’m going to launch a new raffle where you can enter to win great Pittsburgh gifts that you can keep for yourself or give as a gift.  (I’m going to try my hardest to get all of these delivered by 12/24).

There are lots of ways to enter to win – the best way to help is donate to CHS, but you can also earn entries by tweeting, pinning and blogging about the 12 Giveaways of Pittsburgh!

  • 5 entries = donate $10 to CHS
  • 10 entries = donate $20 to CHS
  • 1 entry = tweet about the 12 Giveaways of Pgh and include the #pghsavesxmas
  • 5 entries = write a blog post that links back to this post
  • 3 entries = leave a comment
  • 1 entry = pin this image to pinterest and tag it with #pghsavesxmas
  • 1 entry = like CHS on Facebook

You can donate to CHS online here and use the Rafflecopter box below to enter to win! We’ll draw four winners for this giveaway.

Here are the first four giveaways:

  1. $25 Gift Certificate to Pavement Shoes – locally owned boutique in Lawrenceville that sells shoes, clothes and accessories
  2. A Digital Subscription to Rustbelt Almanac – a beautiful quarterly magazine about the best section of the country
  3. Pierogi Pillow – a huggable version of Pittsburgh’s favorite food made with love by Commonwealth Press
  4. Copy of the Alternate Histories of the World Book by Matthew Buchholz – Entertainment Weekly’s book gift guide describes this book as “blazingly creative.” – and it was authored by a Pittsburgh resident.

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a Rafflecopter giveaway

Some additional ways to help!

  • Donate directly to CHS 
  • Donate a prize for the raffle – if we have more than 12 giveaways – that is ok.  We’ll keep running these until we reach the fundraising goal. (email lindsay@iheartpgh.com)
  • Be an elf – volunteer to help deliver prizes next week (email lindsay@iheartpgh.com)

Save the Date to Help Save Christmas

CHS shaped cookies, yes there will be cookies

CHS shaped cookies, yes there will be cookies

This is an important Save the Date post.  I say important because it is about an important cause and it is a fun event!

2013 Cookies and Cards Fundraiser
Wednesday December 4, 2013
6-8pm
Houghs in Greenfield
RSVP on Facebook  

For the past 2 years, I’ve joined a great crew of Pittsburgh bloggers to help the Pittsburgh Nonprofit Community Human Services raise funds to provide holiday gifts and cheer for some of our fellow Pittsburgh residents who really wouldn’t have much during the holiday season.

2012 – A Huge Success

Last year, we set a lofty goal of raising $5000 in donations and gift cards to help CHS provide a little something for the folks they work with.  Thanks to the generous donations and kind hearts of Pittsburghers – we raised $8500 – which allowed CHS to provide something for over 400 people.

2013 – We need your help!

I’m setting the goal for 2013 at $10,000 and I’m going to need your help to get there.

I’m on my way to the planning meeting for the December event this evening and I am going to have an online fundraising page to share with you shortly.  You can read more about why I’ve been supportive of CHS here.

I hope that you will plan to attend this fun event – who doesn’t like to get together and eat holiday cookies – and that you will bring your friends along too.

If you would like to help in planning and promoting the December 4 event – we are always looking for help and donation of raffle prizes.  Please drop me an email (lindsay – @Iheartpgh.com) and I’ll keep you in the loop.