Au Pairs Offer a Helping Hand at the Sharing Shelf in Port Chester

Au Pairs Offer a Helping Hand

There’s no better way to become engaged in a community than actively taking steps to improve it. This is exactly why a motivated group of 18 au pairs and their two Area Directors enjoyed a rainy morning (April 6) volunteering at a local "clothing bank" donation center. In what was the fifth consecutive year, au pairs of Westchester, New York offered the Sharing Shelf a helping hand by sorting new and gently used clothing generously donated by their host families.

“The best way to learn more about one of Westchester’s most vital volunteer programs is by rolling up your sleeves and helping out” note Birgitte Stoerger and Barbara Brown, Area Directors for AuPairCare.

The Sharing Shelf - Family Services collects, sorts, cleans, and packages a week’s worth of donated clothing to be distributed to needy children, infants and teens throughout the Westchester region. Local social workers later pick up the bundled packages and help distribute to local children. With so many gracious donations, the process of sorting and cleaning requires a lot of bodies and a good deal of time. Therefore, Area Directors Birgitte and Barbara found this to be the perfect opportunity to bring together their two groups of au pairs and offer 18 sets of hands to assist. Au pair Luciana from Brazil voiced how impressed she was that the Sharing Shelf is run by volunteers! The group had a wonderful morning working together, laughing and enjoying one another’s company, not to mention the positive vibes everyone was feeling about helping their new community.

Au pair Linda from Sweden mentioned “it is a great opportunity to help out and to do something good for the Westchester community. Since we take care of kids, we know how important clothes are for them.”

Other au pairs such as Tarryn from South Africa shared similar positive feelings, “The children we care for have lots of different clothes, but other kids in the area aren’t as lucky. I think it’s important to help provide these children with clothes which are still in a very good condition.”