The 4-Leaf Clovers Club community clothing drives gathered over 100 30-gallon bags of clothing and many boxes of items for Michigan Heartland Goodwill Industries. In addition, they donated winter clothing to the Haven of Rest homeless shelter, canned goods to the local food bank and bought fence pickets to help fund the new community playground. (Photo of some of the kids, taken by Karen Murray of MIHGI.)

By Tonya Skuse

In August 2004, the 4-Leaf Clovers Club of Marshall was accepted into a pilot program sponsored by Michigan Heartland Goodwill Industries (MIHGI) called Project Buddy-Up. The 28-member club is one of seven local nonprofit organizations accepted into the program.

Project Buddy-Up uses Goodwill’s proven retail systems and their online auction site—shopgoodwill.com—to help the Buddy-Up partners raise funds, while also benefiting the Goodwill organization. The Buddy-Up partners donate their used goods—clothing, collectibles, home decor, jewelry, antiques, holiday items, books, records, toys, photographic and electronic equipment, musical instruments...you name it! In return, the partners share in the profits of the sale in the Goodwill stores and online auctions.

The kids in the 4-Leaf Clovers Club organized two community-wide clothing drives in 2005 to collect goods for donation to MIHGI. They gathered over 100 30-gallon bags of clothing and many boxes of items for selling on the Web site.

When their first check came in November, the kids decided to share their wealth! They donated winter clothing (purchased at Goodwill, of course) to The Haven of Rest, a homeless shelter for men in Battle Creek. They also donated canned goods to the local food bank just before Christmas and bought fence pickets to help fund the new community playground.
In addition to their charitable deeds, the club members designed and bought new club T-shirts, treated themselves to a Christmas party, assisted some members with funds for projects and created great decorations for their fair booth at the Calhoun County Fair. The kids also shared their experiences with Project Buddy-Up as a group community service project at the fair. It’s been very rewarding in many ways for the members. It is their hope to continue in the second year of the program and be able to help even more charities.