When we first started Coupons of Compassion, we sent out an email to our family and friends. That initial email sparked much interest from many friends who work for various agencies about how they might get involved. The marketing director for The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay approached us to see if we would be interested in putting together a blog, to display on their website, about our new initiative. If you’re not familiar with The Crisis Center or Tampa Bay, then take a minute to visit their website, www.crisiscenter.com . Their mission is as follows:

“The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay brings help, hope and healing to people facing serious life challenges or trauma resulting from sexual assault or abuse, domestic violence, financial distress, substance abuse, medical emergency, suicidal thoughts, emotional or situational problems.”

You can see how their purpose so closely fits with that of Coupons of Compassion – to bring practical help & powerful hope. So, of course we jumped at a chance to tell others about COC on their blog, but more than a written blog, we wanted to give a tangible demonstration of what COC can do. So, we looked for a specific part of the Crisis Center that we could donate to.

Sexual Assault services is one of the programs at CCTB. This service provides forensic exams & crisis intervention for victims of sexual assault. Nurses are dispatched 24 hours a day when a case is called in. Their, the victims receive quality care from skilled nurses and comfort from crisis intervention specialist who care. A major need that Sexual Assault services has is new clothing for their clients. When a client comes in, their clothes are often taken for evidence purposes. So, they are offered new clothes. This is one of the immediate ways the Crisis Center gives power back to the victim – they get to choose something to wear from a closet of brand new clothes. Only new clothes are accepted as donations for this program, to ensure the victims of these horrific crimes are given outstanding care. This was the project we wanted to be involved in. So, we set out to find and clip coupons.

Often, people think that coupons are just for things like pasta, rice or cereal. While there are a ton for those items, there are also some really great coupons for everything else. With this project in mind, we immediately went to Target.com to see what they might have. Of course, our favorite store wouldn’t let us down. There we found 2 different coupons for clothing items. We found a $3.00 coupon for Mossimo women’s clothing and a $2.00 coupon for Merona women’s shirts. We printed both twice from each computer (2) and were on our way. Immediately, we went to the clearance rack – 50% off was the biggest mark down rack and we started our search there. Within minutes we had 7 shirts that would be perfect for this project. With coupons in hand and shirts in our cart we were ready for check out. A coupon for each shirt, combined with the already reduced price gave us 7 shirts for only $11.67 (with tax)! Before store discount and coupons, the retail price of these shirts was $85.94 (without tax) . There is no way that our budget for this project could have managed that price tag, but we could certainly contribute $11.67 to such a worthy cause.

Coupons of Compassion is more than extreme couponing. It is a way to take the resources we have, though they may be small, and turn them into big impact. Though we weren’t able to fill up their closet full of clothes for victims. We know that there will be 7 women that will cared for and clothed. 7 women who will be given some comfort and hope in the midst of a horrible life occurrence, and we’re pretty excited about that!

*They will be posting the blog about COC next week. A link will be posted here for everyone to see.