CFS Holiday Drive to Benefit Germaine Lawrence
Below is a note from Coach Andrea Cooke. When she’s not here training hard and making us all laugh, she does some very difficult and important work as a clinician at Germain Lawrence. This year, we’ll be running a holiday drive to benefit the girls she works with each day. Please read below for a note from Andrea…
As you may be aware of, the holiday season is approaching, the red cups are out, and everyone is way too excited for cold weather 🙂 Unfortunately, where I work, the holiday season isn’t always as joyful. I am a clinician at Germaine Lawrence, a residential treatment center for adolescent girls between the ages of 11-18. All of my kids are amazing, intelligent, insightful and have admirable goals and dreams, but unfortunately have dealt with some tough stuff in their lives. We take in a lot of girls who have bounced around between foster homes, have runaway and/or gone missing, have little or no family connection, have abuse in their pasts, and struggle with mental illnesses. I feel very lucky and honored to be their clinician; to witness their resilience, hope, and courage. As you can probably assume, the holiday season can be a bit depressing for a lot of them. Most of the kiddos will remain on campus for the holidays and do not have much access to the community.
I only have about 8 girls on my caseload, but there are close to 100 on campus and I want to make this holiday season a fun and special time for all of them, especially when they are living in a foreign place and among people they don’t necessarily want to be with. So many of you helped me out by donating iPods and I wish I could verbalize how appreciative and overjoyed the girls were to receive them. Listening to music helps them work through their anxiety and stress and practice their coping skills; I am so thankful for your kindness.
This may be early to begin thinking about the holidays, but I was hoping that in the next month or so you could make note of some possessions you may have laying around that you no longer use and would like to donate. Below is a list of recommended items to donate, things that I know the girls would love. I see where everything goes and who they go to and would never ask for things that I know they wouldn’t make use of. All the items below would be beneficial and very much appreciated by the girls.
We will have some bins set up at CFS over the next couple of weeks to begin collecting the items. Around Christmas time, I will give the girls all of your donated gifts! Please, don’t feel any pressure at all to donate or donate a massive amount. Anything is appreciated! Also, feel free to ask me any questions; you can usually find me bopping around the gym at night. Thanks so much!!
Recommended donations:
· Old or new iPods/mp3 players (Still taking these in. Do not worry about a charger, we have enough on campus that are compatible with most iPods.)
· DVD’s (movies/TV seasons) for teenage girls (nothing R)
· Winter clothes/accessories, mittens, gloves, scarves, hats, jacket, boots.
· Art supplies (adult coloring books, markers, pens)
· Small gift certificates (5 dollars or so) to starbucks, DD, walgreens, cvs (some of the girls are given ‘community access’ and able to take walks by themselves and like to go to some of these places in the area)
· Journals
· New/Gently Used clothes for teenage girls
· Games (decks of cards, boardgames, etc.)
Strength
1. Push-Jerk
2-2-2-2
2. Split Jerk
2-2-2-2
WOD
800m Run
21 Deadlifts (275,185)
600m Run
15 Deadlifts
400m Run
9 Deadlifts
Level 3- 225,155
Level 2- 185,125
Level 1- 155, 105