Twenty-one year old makes over eighty resource bags for homeless people and others in need

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Despite the warmer temps outside, its not going to last, as the freezing cold temperatures are expected to return, and some struggling people in the community will be staying overnight in warming shelters.

But one woman hopes to make that stay a little more comfortable. 

“There’s so many people in need and so I’m trying to do as much as I can for as many as I can," said Alexis Breveard, whose family has often worked to give back during the winter months. 

After making some blankets as Christmas gifts for her family members, and seeing how they appreciated them, it gave the twenty-one year old an idea, to provide some blankets for people in need at warming shelters.

But the idea didn't stop there:

“Getting into that led into ‘well, they could use this,'" Breveard said. "There’s all these resources I could help provide.”

So she came up with creating resource bags for the homeless that she hopes to distribute at warming centers and shelters, to give those in need some items they can really use--

“Things that we might take for granted, day to day, just because we have access to them that other people might not have access to," she said.

Items such as thermal socks, hand warmers, protein bars, water bottles, ointments, toiletries and more-- even creating bags with feminine hygiene products for women who may be at the shelter. 

And she's received a lot of support from her family and the community.

Breveard said “I’ve been able to get quite a few donations from my community around me, so that’s been very nice.”

Between the donations and what she has been able to source, Breveard said she has enough supplies to create around one hundred of the these bags, and hopes that others will do whatever they can to help someone in need this winter. 

“Nothing is too small," she said. "A lot of times, I feel like, when it comes to donating and trying to help, people think ‘oh I don’t have that much as it is, so I don’t know how much I can help.’ But really, anything helps, even if it’s sharing someone’s post who is taking donations or something small like that. Anything helps.”

Breveard hopes to distribute those bags to shelters over the weekend. She has a GoFundMe to help raise money to make the resource bags, which can be found here: Fundraiser by Alexis Breveard : Help the Homeless This Winter (gofundme.com)