MARBLEHEAD — During the colder months of the year, New England’s climate calls for gloves, hats, and blankets.
For Essex Tech senior and Marblehead resident Amelia Gonzales, she saw a need to provide these items to homeless individuals on the North Shore.
To do this, Gonzales started the Winter Warmth Project, an initiative aimed at providing gloves, hats, blankets, and other items to homeless shelters and community organizations in the area.
Gonzales said she loves the “tight-knit” community of Marblehead and wanted to give back. She said she was inspired to start this project after noticing many homeless individuals who did not have items to keep themselves warm during the winter months while traveling to and from the dance studio she rehearses at in Salem.
“We live in a very cold area, and I’ve always been someone who loves giving back to the community. And just being warm in the winter, it’s very important to me. And seeing homeless people walk around and seeing that they might not have what we have, and everything. So hats and gloves are very important for winter. And I just thought it was going to be a really good idea to start this community service project,” she said.
Gonzales said she is collecting items throughout the winter and will disperse donations to Lifebridge North Shore, LEO Inc., Help Is, and The Wish Project.
Each organization is tasked with providing resources or shelter to individuals struggling with homelessness.
She said she has already donated four bins of winter items, including approximately 30 blankets, 35 gloves, and hats to Lifebridge North Shore.
Gonzales said when she arrived at Lifebridge to drop off the donations with her father, many individuals who were seeking support from Lifebridge came up to her and said, “Oh, is this for us? This means a lot. Thank you so much.”
She added, “That already felt really good. And then we just asked for the director’s name, and he came over; he told us about how Lifebridge works and everything. He was just super sweet and super thankful for everything.”
Gonzales also operates an Instagram account, @winterwarmthproject, where individuals who wish to donate can contact her directly for information on where to send items via mail or determine a location where she can pick up donations.
Gonzales’s mother, Amanda Gonzales, said she is “really proud” of her daughter’s donation efforts.
She said Gonzales grew up attending and supporting various fundraising efforts that gave back to the community, especially around the holidays: “Every Christmas, we didn’t really get our Christmas ready until right before the 24th because our house was basically Santa’s workshop, preparing everything, and she’d spend her days coming out from school and wrapping and helping and delivering. And so that’s all she’s known.”
Amanda Gonzales added that she has raised four children, with Gonzales being the youngest, and encouraged them to always give back to the community.
“I always tell them, you never know when you’re going to need help, and your situation could always change pretty quickly. But I just think that with her doing this project, I really want her to inspire other youth who are her age,” she said.
