NELA helping NELA

When you’re shopping local this season, take a moment to look for this poster in the window of local merchants.

NELA Helping NELA, a giving campaign created by Katherine Ferwerda of K-York Studio.  From Katherine:

The holidays are just around the corner and, with all the hype about HIghland Park, will hopefully mean lots of shopping in the neighborhood.  But, with all the talk about the new folks who are moving in, I think it’s important to acknowledge some of the current residents that won’t be shopping in our stores.  I’m proposing a giving campaign, NELA helping NELA —  basically a food and gift drive —  to bridge the gap between the new, upwardly mobil residents and the current residents who are struggling.

With the support of the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce, there are two organizations that we would like to support. For Thanksgiving we would like to collect canned goods for the The Northeast Mental Health Center located near Fresco Market. They will assemble food baskets and prepare holiday meals. We will be collecting gifts for a second group, Hathaway-Sycamores Child Services. They will assemble gift baskets for needy families and individual children.

IT’S VERY SIMPLE: Each business is responsible for their own collection box or basket. The Highland Park Chamber of Commerce is generously donating buttons that you can give out to everyone who brings in a can of food or a gift. Additional incentive might be to offer 10% discount to donators. Cans will be dropped off at K York Studio, 5028 1/2 York Blvd, by Nov 25, gifts by Dec 21.

With the Chambers help we hope to get turkeys donated from some local markets. They will contact all the local representatives to post about the campaign on their websites and pass out fliers during the Veterans and Christmas Parades. Additionally, we will also be contacting all the area news organizations to help us promote the campaign.

Please let me know if you are interested in participating so we can drop off buttons and compile a list of donation centers for press. The up-coming NELA Art Walk is a great time to kick off this campaign. It gives us two weeks to collect canned goods. Small Business Saturday is the kick-off for the three week gift drive. I will send out more information about what types of gifts are appropriate.

Help us show Los Angeles that Highland Park is not only a hip neighborhood with good property values, but a generous caring place. Let’s share the good fortune so everyone living here can have a happier holiday season.

Thanks for your consideration. Look forward to hearing from you!