Board of Religious Organizations's Blog

Visit our new blog site

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:59:13 GMT

Visit our new blog site!!!!

http://bro-saintlouis.blogspot.com/

and our website

www.brostl.org

Volunteers Honored

Mon, 19 May 2008 02:56:19 GMT

BRO and other community volunteers were recently honored by the 22nd Judicial Circuit Family Court - Juvenile Division, at their 2008 Volunteer and Contributors Reception. It was held on Tuesday , April 22, 2008.

They presented a wonderful buffet dinner and program with participation from some of the students working with the Juvenile Center.

The BRO contributed 250 toys for their Children's Winter Festival held in mid December.

Each participant at the dinner received a laminated poem written by one of the students.

About Volunteers

What kind of people work for free

and actually pay attention to kids like me?

Help us to realize

that we all make mistakes

and it's a good idea

if we all slowed our brakes

That will make us smile when we're upset

even if that's the 1st time ya'll met.

You can tell them things

and they'll understand

and will help you figure out

your game plan

A person who works and please

is a volunteer just like these

Thank you

Sheila H.

Herbert & Adrian Woods Foundation

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:09:37 GMT

The biggest surprise of all!!!! We were awarded a grant of $21,500 from the Herbert & Adrian Woods Foundation!!! WOW!!!! We will do our best to put it to good use. Check back here after the first of the year for our plans for 2008.

Thanks so much to the Woods Foundation!

First Book

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:02:21 GMT

More surprises! We received a grant of over 4,000 new books from First Book. Read more about them on their website. We are also able to buy new books from them at greatly reduced prices. Tell them , "thank you", too!

http://www.firstbook.org/site/c.lwKYJ8NVJvF/b.674095/k.CC09/Home.htm

Check them out when you have time!

Build-A-Bear

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:55:34 GMT

A surprize donation showed up at the BRO. Dolls and Bears from the folks at Build-A-Bear. We received about 30 dolls, around 100 bears and 40 Build -a-Bear Kits. One is cuter than the next. They arrived at the end of our distribution time, a few were given out for some special projects. They are being packed for our 4-6 year old girls for Christmas 2008.

Tell Build - a -Bear Workshop ,"Thanks" for supporting our organization.

http://www.buildabear.com/

Here's a link to their website!

Santa has landed at the BRO

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:22:19 GMT

Santa and the elves have been very busy this month. We have packed up toys for 1200 kids and several agencies have picked them up in advance for their holiday parties. This week we will distribute toys to over 1500 children and their families.

So check back here to see what's happening.

We want to thank the Greater St. Louis Knitter's Guild for supplying us with wonderful teddy bears each one wearing a hand knit sweater. They have done this for us for several years. They had received a donation of bears from Macy's, and I think their stash is depleted. Help us out with a donation of a bear and we'll forward it to the Knitters Guild for them to dress up.

Click here http://www.stlouisknittersguild.com/charities.html for a link to their website and their charity knitting projects.

Look under Highlighted Posts...upper right on this page and click on "Bears for Kids" to see photos of the bears from last year.

Toys for Neighborhood Houses

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 04:24:54 GMT

This week we are packing toys for 900 children who are served by the wonderful folks at Neighborhood Houses. http://www.neighborhoodhouses.org/ . It is always fun to poke around in the boxes of toys and get things ready. We are packing early for this group so they can have a party and have the parents of the children pick out their toys. This is a great idea. We hope to encourage some of our other agencies to give this a try. We do not have space available to permit folks to browse through the selection of toys we have. ( There is barely room for the boxes and staff. ) Moms can and do pick out dolls and books while waiting for their orders to be filled.

As I said above, we are getting these toys ready for the Neighborhood Houses, since we are tight for space, each afternoon we take the toys packed that day over to Oak Hill Presbyterian Church, who is allowing us to store the packed toys as we ready them for the Neighborhood Houses. (www.oakhillpcusa.org) OHPC housed us for almost two years while our current location in the Presbytery of Giddings Lovejoy Center was being renovated. We do appreciated their support.

One of the things we are proud of is that while we are serving youngsters ages newborn to 10 years of age, we also provide a place for retirees to go and be of service to others. All of our volunteers and staff are retired from other careers or from raising their families. The volunteers are incredibly energetic and they wear me out. I have been working "full-time" with them while we wind down to our distribution, and I am tired and can barely keep up. I am 54 ( retired teacher) and the folks are 10 - 30 years older than me and have twice the energy! I hope I can keep on ticking with them. Just making it thru our toy distribution would be great, then I'll start training for next year. More about our volunteers, later!

Toys for St. Louis Family Court

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 01:42:10 GMT

This week we had the pleasure of counting and sorting toys for 250 children ( boys and girls ages newborn - 10 years.) that will be served by the St. Louis City Family Court. They are a new client for us. We always have a fun time opening the boxes that have been packed several months previously and imagine the kids during the holidays as they open their presents from Santa. We received big hugs from the staff that came by and picked up the boxes ( two pickup trucks full of toys). It seemed kind of silly to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays so early in October and the weather was still 80 degrees. But there were big smiles all around and I know the staff at the Family Court will see more smiles when they host their Holiday Party for the families they serve.

New Website

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 04:57:24 GMT

Check out our new website! We're feeling pretty savey. Of course if we really knew what we were doing we would be dangerous. But we did get this website set up. Compete with links to our Amazon.com Wish List and a link to PayPal where you can donate to us for books. We have already received $35 in donations. One from a friend in California!

http://brostl.org/

Be sure to check it out!

Wish List!! Books for Needy Kids!

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:08:18 GMT

Here is our wish list on Amazon.com. Books we really, really would like to be able to give out to our clients. A large percentage of our families are African-American, and I think they would enjoy having books like these to give to their children for Christmas. We'll take them new or used. Check out your local book store, or order from Amazon, a lot of these books are currenly selling for "By 3 get 1 free" and with an order of $25 or more you can get free shipping.

If you would like to order from Amazon, you can have the packages shipped to our office at

Board of Religious Organizations

4262 Cleveland Ave.

St. Louis, MO 63110

Click on the box below to find our wish list!

Your donation is, of course, tax deductible.