Buckhead Commercial Real Estate Firm Helps Cobb Nonprofit

Patch Staff Report

Simple Needs GA (SNGA) will supply duffel bags packed with full-sized toiletries to more than 300 additional shelter residents this year thanks to the generosity of its donors and volunteers—and in particular, Buckhead-based commercial real estate firm JLL Atlanta.

“We are expanding our toiletries program to help approximately 320 clients of four local agencies: Family Promise of Cobb County, The Extension, the YWCA of Northwest Georgia and Zion Keepers,” said Brenda Rhodes, founder of SNGA, which serves children, people experiencing homelessness, and others in need. “The generous support of JLL Atlanta’s Community Connection program played a significant role in making this possible.”

According to a news release, earlier this year, JLL Atlanta ordered and paid for $4,700 worth of supplies for SNGA’s toiletries program, which supplies duffel bags filled with shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, notepads, razors and other useful items to people in need.

“On top of that, on March 19, more than 100 JLL Atlanta employees worked very hard packing 300 of our duffel bags,” Rhodes said. “They even transported them from Buckhead to our warehouse in Marietta.”

JLL Atlanta Community Connection, which organizes volunteer activities for employees and their families, helped coordinate the volunteer day at the company’s Peachtree Road office. The activities included putting together 18 no-sew blankets for SNGA’s My Birthday Matters program, which supplies toys, blankets, cupcakes and more to homeless children on their birthdays.

“We were thrilled to be able to help,” said Julie Bane, a JLL Atlanta vice president who sits on the Community Connection committee. “This is precisely what Community Connection is all about.” Bane, who began volunteering with SNGA in May 2011, joined SNGA’s board of directors earlier this year as secretary and chair of fundraising. “Julie is doing a fantastic job for us,” Rhodes said. “We are so lucky to have her on board.”

SNGA’s duffel bags have already made a difference for children and families served by Family Promise of Cobb County, said director Camilla Worrell. “We have a partnership with the McCleskey-East Cobb YMCA where our families are able to go to the YMCA to work on health outcomes,” she said. “Before, they would arrive without any duffel bags and might have their stuff in, say, grocery bags. They didn’t look like everybody else. But when we brought them the SNGA bags, they were so excited. Having the bags allowed them to blend in and feel like part of the community.”

Each year, SNGA supplies approximately 1,000 duffel bags to the residents of the Elizabeth Inn, the emergency shelter at Marietta’s MUST Ministries. SNGA also supplies Acworth-based Give Homeless Hope with tents, candles, sleeping bags and other outdoor and winter gear for those who live in the woods.

“No nonprofit can meet all of the diverse needs of its clients,” Rhodes says. “We get help from other groups—one example is Atlanta’s St. James UMC, which recently helped by purchasing bags and blankets for our programs—and so our philosophy is to help other organizations ‘fill in the cracks,’ too. We’re all working toward a common goal—improving the lives of people in need.”

For more information about Simple Needs GA, email info@SimpleNeedsGA.org, visit simpleneedsga.org or check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/simpleneedsga.

SNGA’s mission is to meet the simple needs of children, people experiencing homelessness, and others in need, while inspiring our community to do the same. The Marietta-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit offers several community-based programs. Donors and volunteers provide full-sized toiletries and other useful items to people experiencing homelessness.