NAHANT – The Nahant Women’s Club of the North Shore completed its holiday giving initiatives with a donation of a dozen winter coats, two bags full of socks, hats, and mittens, a bag of personal care items, $25 gift cards to local stores, and a $2,000 donation to The Haven Project, which supports local homeless youth.
Toward the end of the year, the club will ask its members to donate. Through a list of local charities, the club will select one that suits its philanthropy. Members are welcome to suggest charities as well, according to Mia Corina, President of the Nahant Women’s Club of the North Shore. This year they chose the Haven Project in Lynn.
The Nahant Women’s Club of the North Shore was founded in 1895 back when women had very little access to transportation and education, according to Corina. Every member of the club is a volunteer and consists of people from Nahant, Swampscott, Marblehead, and Lynn. The club is a 501 nonprofit organization.
“We contacted The Haven Project and asked them what they needed, and they said they needed coats and warm clothes for the winter, and they needed gift cards. So that’s what we collected,” said Corina.
The Haven project in Lynn focuses on providing services to homeless young adults ages 17 to 24. They provide direct services to more than 220 homeless unaccompanied youth each year, with referrals to other youth-serving organizations for hundreds more. Services they provide include job training and online learning labs.
In mid-November, the Nahant Women’s Club of the North Shore supplied groceries for about 20 complete Thanksgiving meals as well as 15 grocery gift certificates for $25 each to North Shore Community College’s Stop Hunger on Campus program.
“I kind of posted it on Facebook that we were looking for coats and several members of the Nahant community just dropped off coats,” said Corina. She said the members are responsive to the cause of homeless youth. It was an act of people wanting to give and be mindful of people who are less fortunate, according to her.
