Strack and Van Til, Ultra Foods, and Town and Country Market recently ran a special promotion offering stamps given via grocery purchases that shoppers could trade in for sought after Rachael Ray™ dinnerware.
For every $10 spent, customers earned a stamp. Collect enough stamps and you could trade them in for a dinner plate, salad plate, soup and/or cereal bowl, or a mug. Collecting 10 stamps allows you to buy one piece for only $2.99 or collect 20 stamps to get one piece for free.
Calumet College of St. Joseph (CCSJ) saw an opportunity in this promotion to give back to an organization in Northwest Indiana that could use the dishware to help uplift the people they served: the Sojourner Truth House in Gary.
CCSJ recently reported that over 33,000 stamps were collected as a result of the generosity of Region residents. These stamps translated into over 1,000 dishes, or 104 sets of 16 pieces that will be used by the homeless women in the shelters being built for them by the Sojourner Truth House.
It just goes to show how a lot of people working together can have a tremendous impact on the community, and how something as small as set of dishes can restore a sense of normalcy and purpose to people on the path to improving their lives.
After all, sometimes all someone needs to make a big leap forward is just a little step in the right direction.