How 'Connecting a Caring Community' helps others

Big events is happening this Sunday meantime in L.A. Yeah, this one is to help foster youth get what they need when they go off to school. It's called Deck My Dorm, the mission making sure all 160 students receive all of their dorm essentials so they can kick off their higher education without having to worry about the basics to get by. This is so important. The events and others like it are because of a non-profit group called Connecting a Caring Community. And joining us now, Lisa Cottomer, co-founder and executive director of Connecting a Caring Community. Thanks for being here this morning. Thank you so much for having me. This is such important work that you're doing. Before we talk about Deck My Dorm though, I want to talk about the organization. Tell us more. Truly blessed. About 10 years ago, people would always ask me, why am I happy all the time? What coffee do I drink? And I said, I'm literally happy because I live a life of giving. I wake up every day and I say, what can I do today to make the world a better place? And we created a platform where other people could do that too. Yeah. And so it really is a caring community. It truly is. The word community is key in all of this. So blessed. So blessed. Yeah. And so how does it work? You do stuff, I'm sure, all year round, but this is just one facet of what your organization is. Exactly. So we have close to 400 volunteers in the community. Every month they're out there giving back, whether it's at hospitals, helping kids with cancer or drug addiction or homelessness. We're literally filling the need. Whatever is out there, we're there to fill it. And so Deck My Dorm is happening on Sunday. This is so important, especially for, I mean, people who are coming up in the foster care system. They might not have as much support as other kids. So tell us how it works and why this is so important to that community. Deck My Dorm is one of our incredible projects. Literally one of my very favorite. And 160 kids will be there next Sunday to get everything they need for their dorm. Our donors in our community have ordered off our Amazon wishlist. Our donors have been so generous. And because of that, they're going to have thousands of items. Literally, I think close to 3,000 items were ordered off the Amazon wishlist. And these kids will have everything they need so their dorm can literally feel like home. Yeah. I think it takes a lot to put something like this together. Oh, my. I mean, because you think about all the things that they need, all the things that you need to curate and gather for an event like this. Listen, my mother remembers very well, I'm sure, what it was like to try to get all the stuff for my dorm in college. I can't imagine doing it for, I mean, literally hundreds of kids. You know, I can't take the credit for all that. I have an incredible team and incredible chair people that make this happen every day, incredible board of directors. And the donors and the sponsors are what make this happen. I'm just a small part of it, but I get to do this work every single day, which I'm blessed to do. Is there any anecdote that you can think of, any way that this has made an impact on one particular person or a memory that you've made along the way with this? The magic happens every single day, but literally we're changing lives. And we find that not only we change in someone else's life, we're changing our own life. The more you give truly, truly the happier life you live. But I imagine like, you know, you have a, you have a foster kid, like kids in general that are going to school, just don't have a lot of means to be able to gather all these essentials and all these, these things just to get started. So how long have you been doing the deck my dorm situation? And like, I can imagine these kids going in and going like, at least I don't have to think about, you know, where am I getting by betting for, for, for the bed in my dorm. So this is our fifth year. We started with 21 kids five years ago, and today we're having 160 foster kids come through. And we've had heard from some of these kids in the past and truly how it's changed their life and that they would never have been able to go to school and have these items if it wasn't for us. Otherwise they'd be moving in with a black trash bag. Right, right. And this just kind of sets them off on a confident foot because I remember, you know, being a freshman in college and how nerve wracking that whole experience was, let alone having to worry about how to get the whole thing done. Exactly. It makes their journey much easier and it really makes them know that they're loved by people that they don't even know. How special is that? Yeah. So this takes place on Sunday. Um, and then we see that at the gymnasium there. So how does the process work? They go in these, these, these, uh, these students, these kids are identified and then they just get to go and basically do go on their little shopping excursion and stuff like that. Thinking they're just getting their bedding. And when they get there, they realize they're leaving with a backpack and huge duffel bags filled with everything they need. So they gotta come not really knowing. And then they leave. They're like, wow, this is real. This is really happening. And the smiles that go on that day and the love and the warmth that's filled in those rooms is it's really extraordinary. Yeah. What have been some of the reactions that you've seen? Tears, laughter, love, shy kids that don't want to talk, but leave with just so many words of gratitude. The gratitude is really, I think the word that room is filled with gratitude, whether the recipients or the donors or the sponsors, in addition to what we're doing with the 160 kids of giving them everything, we're also giving over $20,000 in scholarships for them as well. Wow. That's really proud. We're really proud, really proud. So this is one of your favorite events of the year, but again, you said your, your organization does so many other things. So for any of our viewers that want to get involved, I want to learn more about the organization. Yeah. So definitely check out our website. We do give back projects every month. Our two big projects are Deck My Dorm and another one during Christmas is where we give back to UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital. And every month we're either at the help group, Beit Yeshiva, the homeless shelters. We're literally, we're out there hands-on doing the work that we need to do to make our world a better place. Love it. Thank you. Thank you for what you do every day. Appreciate it. Yes. For more on how to volunteer and get involved with other events like Deck My Dorm, you can just go to Connecting a Caring Community. It's right there at the bottom of your screen.