Help Us Spread Warmth and Love This Winter

This blog post is going to be a little bit different than our usual information on hearing loss, but I feel like this is the perfect outlet to spread awareness on a subject that is close to our hearts here at Beltone.

This week my father-in-law collected leftover bread from Panera Bread and took it to our church, Virginia Beach United Methodist, just like he does every week. Since it has been getting colder he also brought some old winter coats along to donate. As soon as he handed them over, homeless people who were there started putting them on. This broke his heart. When he shared this story with us, we jumped into action. Our entire staff started going through our closets, pulling out coats, sweaters, and blankets to take in to the church. As a group, we decided to make it our mission to do as much as we can for the homeless in our area.

Living in Virginia Beach near the Oceanfront I see homeless people on a near daily basis, during nice, sunny, warm weather it becomes easy to forget what a serious condition homelessness is. When it rains, snows, and the temperature drops it becomes more apparent how dangerous living without shelter is.

In Hampton Roads our average winter temperature is 41.5°F. Nearly 580,000 experience homelessness on a nightly basis in America, about 1,800 of those people are here in the Hampton Roads Southside. In the cold winter temperatures these people have to worry about not only frostbite, illness, hypothermia, and depression. As we turn up the thermostats in our houses we have to wonder what we can do to help.

So, the question is simple: Will you help us spread warmth and love this winter?

If you have any old winter coats, hats, scarves, gloves, socks, blankets please drop them off at your closest Beltone Southside location and we will get them to those who so desperately need them!

Thank you for being a part of our Beltone family and our community.

Sincerely,
Becca Grohler