Bin Blessed Helps Denver Nonprofits With Donations To Families
When small things make a big difference, Bin Blessed is there to help with donations to families in need, all wrapped in a little green bin
Photos courtesy of Bin Blessed and There With Care | Cy DeBoer and her green bins have helped raise over $1 million in donated goods to help families faced with critically ill children.
Ask anyone at There With Care about the generosity of donors who enable this Denver-based nonprofit to provide food, clothing, cleaning supplies, toiletries, transportation and other essentials to area families with a child in the throes of a medical crisis, and the answer is likely to be, “We’ve been blessed.”
It might even be, “We’ve Bin Blessed.” And no, that isn’t a typographical error.
Bin Blessed is a grass-roots group of like-minded women in the South Metro area that places green plastic bins on their front porches so friends and neighbors can drop off diapers and baby wipes, jars of peanut butter, boxes of mac and cheese and other nonperishables for There With Care.
“Bin Blessed is There With Care’s No. 1 provider of pantry items,” says Castle Pines resident Cy DeBoer, who with her husband, Bruce, founded Bin Blessed in 2015. “There With Care serves at least 260 families per month, so our donations give it more leeway to help with the larger things, like house or car payments, electric bills, etc.”
At last count, Bin Blessed has given There With Care 105,352 diapers, 175,487 baby wipes and 21,735 pounds of food—for a total value of more than $1 million.
Bin Blessed started with 10 women who, like the DeBoers, wanted to support There With Care in ways other than attending fundraisers or writing checks. Today, there are “Bin Babes” in communities in Castle Rock, Parker, Littleton, Centennial, Lone Tree, Cherry Hills Village and Denver.
Donation bins also are placed in seven schools, several cafes and churches and various medical and dental offices. A local golf club hosted a “hole in onesies” tournament, proceeds from which were used to purchase onesies for There With Care infants.
“We don’t have traditional meetings (other than monthly gatherings to assemble the baskets), dues or fundraising events,” DeBoer adds. “No one keeps track of what, or how much, you are donating. We’re just a community of like-minded souls who have time commitments like travel or raising kids. None of us want to spend a lot of time in meetings, so I like to say Bin Blessed is like a train: You get off and on as you can or wish.”
Bin Blessed does not have 501(c)3 tax status, so donations are not tax-deductible. “We are totally based on kindness, capitalizing on how easy it is for one person to make a difference, to give anonymously
However, There With Care does have 501(c)3 status, so if a donor wants a receipt for tax purposes, one can be issued. “We’ve only had one person ask for one,” DeBoer recalls, “and once he learned more about There With Care, he became one of our biggest donors—250 diapers per month!”
Diapers, in fact, are There With Care’s greatest need. “Babies on chemo need three times the number of diapers as a healthy baby. If you give me a diaper on Monday, by Friday a baby will be wearing it,” DeBoer says.
DeBoer has been a community volunteer for 42 years, having served the homeless through The Gathering Place in Denver and in Midland, Texas, where she helped women who’d survived domestic violence get a fresh start. She was introduced to There With Care by her close friend, Dr. Jody Mathie, a Denver pediatrician.
“Having had a critically ill grandchild myself, I understand the toll it takes on parents, and that’s why I’m so happy that as ugly as the world is right now, there are still so many kind people asking, ‘How can we help?’”
Joanne Davidson is a frequent contributor to Colorado Expression.
