Welcome to Morgan's Way 2008, 2009

This campaign has come to a close

3/05/2009

First off I would like to thank everyone for their donations and time in the Morgan's Way soldier project. Our last packages were shipped out by the end of March 2008 in which we started in November of 2007. Without your generosity I never could've reached my initial goal of $50,000 in 6 weeks, in the end I raised over $127,000 in product and cash donations through March of 2008. To be honest I thought that would never happen when I started this. In the opening week we blew past $50,000 as corporate donations just kept coming in. We had 4 tractor trailers show up to our home with pallets on top of pallets of donations.

We have spoken to people on the base and they are very appreciative of the donations. One Lt. Col who sent me an email is especially appreciative and stated that no one has taken the time out to help the kids there in addition to the troops. I look forward to taking him up on his invite to meet the troops when they return shortly. I would like to thank the many people who I have never met, who sent in donations from around the country, and for the people who during the course of their busy weeks would drop off donations at St. Mary's Parish, School and at our home. It makes you feel good that trying to help others and in turn you touch many other lives as well and that everyone can come together and chip in when needed.

I'm trying to give everyone a clear amount of what actually happened to all the goods received. The majority of the money went to shipping costs to Iraq. All left over cash donations we went to the dollarstore and purchased anything that we were short, mainly tooth brushed, toothpaste, deodorants and body washes, of course in the end I spent about $4,000 more than I should've (thank you Cross Country Media and Sourcing, Inc for picking up the massive short fall) . With some help I went through the Internet looking for closeout stores for the children's products. We bought everything from blankets, coloring books, crayons note pads, pens etc. on top of the many crayons and books that were donated. Every gift bag for the kids, contained crayons, pens, notebooks, coloring books, toys, t-shirts and a backpack. Some received blankets as well. The product donations was so overwhelming that we could not ship 100% to Iraq as the costs versus the cash donations would not cover the expense. Atkin's alone donated over 44,000 Atkin's bars for the cause. Due to the weight, we gave each soldier approximately 40 to 48 bars in their gift box and each child we sent about 5-10. In the end, I still have over 12,000 bars left. So I contacted the Trenton Soup Kitchen and we worked them in over the Holidays through the End of March 2008, along with about 500 bottles of children's and adult vitamins that were donated by Southland Logistics, along with 2000 deodorant bottles, shampoos and daily hygiene products. N.V. Perricone MD who was overly generous, donated so much that we equally gave some to the Trenton Soup Kitchen for Holiday gifts. Perricone, really stepper up and aided in contacting some of their partners and the train kept rolling. They were a valuable part of our success along with Southland Logistics. Granite energy of Utah kicked off the campaign with a $5,000 cash donation and sponsored our Website.

Over all the people who have been on the receiving end of these donations, totaled between 1700 and 2300. All who have received products through this past holiday season and to date. I have been asked by some people through emails and or letters if I would do this again? Currently I'm a freshman at Holy Cross High School in Delran New Jersey. My hopes eventually will allow me to leverage a bigger platform that I could do another special project over my 4 year stay here and on into college. Stay tuned I hope this continues on a larger scale. During 2008, along with the Morgan's Way campaign, I was able to raise an additional $4,000.00. I took the ultimate shopping trip to Toys'R Us and shopped till we could not fit any more in our cars. We contacted WomanPace.org of Mercer county. There we dropped off about 200 gifts for the kids, and wrapped presents for the woman seeking help there. As Morgan's Way is soon set to become a full nonprofit organization, I'm so looking forward to our next life project. In the future Morgan's Way will be involved with providing low income housing and aiding people in rent controlled environments. I hope to be able to leverage State funding, Grants, along with private support to be able to purchase homes, apartments, and make them very affordable for people in need and those trying to get back up on their feet through the current economic crisis that is plaguing the world.

Thank you again for your help and support and stayed tuned for our new website launch, happening very soon.

Sincerely,

Morgan Tilton