About three and a half years ago, my students and I discovered that, on a daily basis, there are many children in our community who are displaced from their homes due to living in a dangerous home environment.  Leaving all of their personal possessions behind, these children are forced to move away from their families and/or homes, into temporary housing such as foster care and/or other assistance programs until they can find a new home or family to permanently take them in.  To help these children, my students and I created a charity organization called “Tiny Treasures” which decorates gift bags and then gives them to these needy children.  The gift bags we donate are decorated by my students and the senior citizens in our community with art and inspirational messages and then filled with toys, crayons, colored pencils, coloring/activity books, journals, decks of cards, play-doh, beanie babies, and candy.  

SafeHouse (a domestic violence shelter for mothers and their children) and Family Protective Services in Genesee County are the two organizations which we have chosen to partner with in helping these children.  Every month, SafeHouse takes in about 30 new children into their temporary housing and Family Protective Services places about 15 others.  Thus, each month, my students and I make and deliver about 45 decorated gift bags in hopes that receiving this gift will brighten their spirits at a time when it seems they have nothing to call their own nor anyone to help them through this difficult time.

After just one year, our project has had some great successes and is still growing.  We have been written up multiple times in the Flint Journal, have been nominated by Priority Children for a volunteerism award, and have received a tremendous amount of support from students, parents, teachers, seniors, and other members of our community.  Not only is collecting all the donations to fill our bags such a huge task, decorating all of the gift bags has been difficult as well.  So, we have partnered with the Swartz Creek Senior Center and Swartz Creek's Project S.C.C.A.T. to help us out.  Take a look at the pictures below and you can see what an awesome job the students and seniors have done.

If you would like to help and make a monetary donation or a donation of items for our gift bags, please contact me at (810) 591-1853 or drop me an email.  We have worked to hard to stop here.  Tiny Treasures will be around for a long time to come, decorating gift bags and bringing smiles to the children in our community.

Thank you for all of your support!

David Simancek

Teacher, Swartz Creek High School

Read our Flint Journal Articles

        February 20th, 2006 - The Flint Journal, Front Page Article

        February 26th, 2006 - The Swartz Creek News

        March 7th, 2006 - The Flint Journal, Editorial

        February 26th, 2005 - The Flint Journal, Front Page Article

        February 20th, 2005 - The Swartz Creek News

Senior Center Bag Making Party, May 2006
Senior Center Bag Making Party, February 2006

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