Heroes and Heat

Our focus in this newsletter:
It may be 110 outside, but we're getting help from heroes

Join us at 3 p.m., Oct. 28 and make your bed...go FAST

Join Bridging AZ, for fun, food and bed races! Mesa Community College is hosting the HeroFest and Great Arizona Bedrace, a family-friendly event with Bridging's signature fund-raising activity, bed races, as the highlight. Cosplay groups from around the Valley will join us to show off their best superhero garb. Family-friendly games and contests are planned. A Costume/Zombie Walk will take place after the bed races.

Grab a cape, sign up your friends and race a bed. Entry fee per team is $100, and a half-price discount is available for early entries.

Bridging also needs dozens of volunteers to help with the bed race and various other duties.

Interested? Go to AZBedRace.org for more information and sign-up forms.

They're heroes, no phone booth needed

Nine deacons and postulants from the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona came to Bridging on July 15 for an annual community service day. What great sports! They willingly stuffed into our vintage phone booth. And we put them to work in the woodworking shop -- despite the heat -- and in the office area, building and assembling wooden herb/wine/beer caddies that Bridging is testing. We're considering offering the carriers as craft projects for social gatherings and team-building events. They would help Bridging raise awareness about our Veterans Furniture Project.

The deacons, who serve in churches throughout the Valley, helped test the concept and gave us great feedback. Half of them braved the temperatures to run some of the power equipment in the woodshop and help make parts for the caddies. Others clamped, glued and hammered pieces together. Our thanks to the deacons and postulants: Martha Durham, Sally Durand, Bola Oluloro, Suzy Parker, Robin Hollis, Pam Bell, Gary Sawyer, Chuck Sowinski and Archdeacon Sarah Getts, who organized the service day. We were blessed!

Turning the tables on recycling

A brief video featuring Encore Fellow Lou Popp, another one of our heroes, who explains how the Veterans Furniture Project workshop allowed Bridging to turn two sets of throwaway tables into great furniture for our clients.

We're feeling lucky!

The Arizona State Lottery in July awarded Bridging $5,000 from the Community Sponsorship Program for Beds for Kids. We're continuing to reach out to emergency responders to help us identify children who need a better place to sleep and dream.

Do you know someone who wants to get paid to volunteer? We have positions available through the AmeriCorps program from 20 hours per week to full time.