Sock it to Poverty Campaign 2014 – Information for Local Presidents, Local Executives, and Regional Councillors

Dear Local Presidents, Local Executive members and Regional Councillors:

We need your help with an important NSGEU annual campaign called “Sock It To Poverty”.

Each year we organize the collection of new socks, mittens, hats, or cash donations in each of our regions and pass these donations on to local organizations who can use our support.

The donations should be passed on through your Regional Council Representative to be collected, tallied, and distributed through Regional Council.

An email about this campaign will be sent to all members tomorrow. You may receive calls from the membership inquiring about the campaign. Please become familiar with the campaign and call if you have any questions.

We are asking you to let your members know at every local meeting from now until the middle of November that:

• We have a campaign called “Sock It To Poverty” to collect new socks, mittens and hats or cash for people in need in your community.
• Encourage them to set up a donation site at their worksite.
• All donations collected in your region stay in your region.
• If your local sets up a clothing (socks, mittens, hats) donation site, you can either decide at your local meeting on a local charity/school etc. to donate them to, or you can contact your regional representative on the Human Rights Committee who will help you to ensure they get to people who need them in your region.
• If your local sets up a cash donation site, please forward the money you collect to the NSGEU. We use the money to do a bulk purchase of high quality socks from a local manufacturer (Stanfields) and send your local back the items you have purchased with your donation for you to distribute in your region as needed.
• You can download a Donation Site Poster here or call us at the union and we can mail some to you.
• Members can put forward a motion at their local meeting for a donation to the campaign. If there are donations via cheque, please ask that the cheque be made payable to: NSGEU and in the memo section-please put “Sock it to Poverty”.

In order to be successful, we need you, as a local president, to help us by getting the word out to your membership early and often and by communicating with your representative from the Human Rights Committee when you do receive donations. Please keep us informed as to the number of donations collected, as we will attempt to tabulate a grand total.

We would appreciate it if you could send us a tally of your donations, click here for a tally sheet, and photos of your Sock It To Poverty Donation Sites with any items you have collected. Please send them to our communications officer at dslye@nsgeu.ca.

The final date for donations is November 15, 2014

This campaign is an initiative of the NSGEU and supported through the Human Rights Provincial Committee and the locals.

Thank you for your time and your energy on this important community campaign. The time to get rolling on this is now.

If you have any questions please contact Jason MacLean at jmacl3an@gmail.com (NSGEU Executive Liaison to the Human Rights Committee) or Tammy Gillis at tammygillis@eastlink.ca (Human Rights Committee Chair).

If anyone from the membership has questions, please direct them to contact the NSGEU at 424-4063 or toll-free at 1-877-556-7438.

The following are the Human Rights Committee regional contacts:

Adele Leblanc (South Shore and Valley Regions) dajg_leb@hotmail.com
Judy Lewis (Metro B Region) judy.lewis07@gmail.com
Liz McQuaid (Metro A & C Regions) lizmcquaid3@hotmail.com
Patti MacDonald (Cumberland Colchester Region) patti.macdonald@mynslc.com
Vivian MacLeod (Pictou Antigonish Guysborough Region) vivian.macleod@pcha.nshealth.ca
Joe MacPherson (Cape Breton Region) joe_macpherson@cbu.ca
Tammy Gillis (Committee Chair) tammygillis@eastlink.ca
Jason MacLean (Committee Executive Liaison) jmacl3an@gmail.com

In Solidarity,

NSGEU Human Rights Committee
Cc: Local Treasurers-Secretary Treasurers
Regional Chairs
NSGEU Board of Directors
Human Rights Committee