Welcome to Ava's Workshop!

“Ava’s Workshop” was the brainchild of an actual child; five year old Ava. In the fall of 2010 Jessica (mommy) was prepping for a craft fair she had a booth at. As she crafted, Ava sat alongside her and made her very own glittery, sparkly goodies. Day in and day out, they crafted. They talked about how some of the money mommy helps to raise goes to charity and what exactly a charity is. She began to pay close attention to daddy and how he was helping gather “beanies and blankets” to handout to the homeless with the high schoolers at church. She had questions, as any five year old would. "Who are those blankets for?" "Aren't the people who live on the street cold at night?" Her mind began spinning with ideas about how we could help.



When the craft show was done she came to us hands filled with her “crafts”. She asked where she could set up her booth to sell her crafts. I looked at her and asked her why she needed money, (I was more concerned about how I was going convince people to come over and buy construction paper Christmas tress…). She answered me saying “I want to use the money to buy blankets for the people who don’t have a home”. Floored, Jess and I immediately starting helping her and armed with paper and glue and a lot of glitter she crafted away and Thanksgiving weekend we invited our friends and family over. She named the event, “Ava’s Workshop”.



That weekend people bought her Christmas Ornaments, Christmas Cards and cookies we helped her bake. She raised $75 in donations that weekend and spread out over thrift shops, .99 cent stores and what people gave her, she packed up trash bags. Each one contained a blanket, hat, gloves, granola bar and bottled water. We loaded up the “sleigh” and drove downtown where in seconds I handed them out to grateful recipients anxious to have something warm on the cold December nights of downtown San Diego’s streets.



Monday, December 10, 2012

{The News Article}


Last week we were contacted by a reporter for the Union Tribune, a local newspaper here in San Diego.  We worked together to get a story together and here it is...

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/dec/10/tp-girl-selling-holiday-crafts-to-raise-money-for/

We were excited, poor Ava was totally overwhelmed.  Seems that it's not common to buy armfuls of newspapers all at once ;)  She got more than enough attention from the Starbuck's barista's and the 7-eleven cashiers for a lifetime.  We're proud of her but more importantly, she's meeting her goal of sharing her story and hopefully inspiring someone to give back to the homeless. 


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