"Tons of Tide" delivered to shelter

Whenever the "Duds n Suds" volunteers at My Friend's House children's shelter throw in a load of wash for their young tenants, they will think of Sanai Theodore.

The third-grader from Huffman Elementary raised $470 to donate Tide laundry detergent to My Friend's House, Plano's emergency children's shelter.

The donation -- which equated to 465 pounds of soap -- was the culmination of months of planning and preparation for Sanai's Plano Academic Creative Education [PACE] service project. At Sanai's request, Proctor & Gamble also sent the Theodores 33 vouchers to donate to the shelter for even more free detergent.

"[Sanai] is an only child, so it's been an ongoing preaching about the importance of doing stuff like this for kids," Sanai's mother, Kecia, said. "Far too many people do not know about My Friend's House so they do not realize the need in Collin County."

Sanai spent several hours at Market Street grocery store off Preston Road receiving donations. The project was assigned during the first semester and within that time the 9-year-old, with minimal help from her parents, developed the idea and made flyers and a poster for her booth.

"I had to talk to strangers so that was kind of new to me," Sanai said. "I felt kind of good about it because you're not just helping one family, you're donating to a whole community; this is helping the world. It felt so good to help My Friend's House."

Sanai's parents suggested their daughter raise the money for the shelter, which has been providing food, emergency shelter and transitional residential services to children and young adults who are in to at-risk youth since 1988. The donation couldn't have come at a better time, as Community Relations Director Karen Voelker said she was on her way out to purchase more suds when the Theodore's called asking what they needed.

"This is really, really good. This particular home would not have been built if it wasn't for kids like you," Voelker said to Sanai when she made her delivery on Monday. "I didn't know how much to expect, I had no idea it was going to be this amount. This is so important to us; because of this project, now her parents know about us. It's always been grassroots."

The unconventional fundraising for City House's new shelter began thanks to another local third grader whose mother was a volunteer at City House. Instead of asking for birthday presents, Voelker said she asked friend's to donate new toys to City House. The student's teacher found out about it and it ballooned from there. The nonprofit has always attracted support from kids eager to help other kids, Voelker said.

"Within that same week we got phone calls from other parents whose kids wanted to do the same thing for their birthday," Voelker said. "It just kept going and going and going, like a pebble in a pond.To this day, a significant portion of our donations come from kids' birthday parties. It's amazing the response that we get from children, it's because they relate."

City House was founded by two local teachers 24 years ago and started as a seven-bed shelter. Today, the new shelter, also known as My Friend's House, has 24 beds and room for children ranging in age from birth to 17. The house's slew of volunteers proudly call themselves Donation Divas, Dust Bunnies, Suds n Duds or Rock n Rollers, depending on their duties and have put in more than 700 hours of volunteer labor since the house opened two years ago. The shelter works closely with Child Protective Services to keep sibling groups together and also offers an 18-month transitional program for homeless young adults aged 18 through 23.

Sanai's teacher, Jennifer Eppler, said the service project something she gives to her third, fourth and fifth grade gifted students every year as a way to expound on their experiences which, according to her, are what most gifted students draw from. The project also helps them develop moral and ethical fiber, a quality essential for future leaders, she said.

"They want to make meaning out of what they're learning," Eppler said. "I want to show them what they could do to understand their place in the world much more than what they're learning [in the classroom]. They have a big responsibility to the people they come in contact with and one of them is giving back. They are doing something that will change their lives forever."

With Kecia being the vice president at Shepton High School and dad Raymond an officer for Collin County Juvenile Corrections Office, Raymond said helping kids overcome abuse and neglect has and will continue to be a family affair for them.

"As a family we see it on both sides, we know why this is important for at-risk youth," Raymond said. "It's important for (Senai) to see and do stuff like this, it will help so that when she gets older she can do even more things like this in the future."

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