Support Blankets for the Homeless in Cooper Hurley’s Winter Facebook Likes Campaign

We are happy to have chosen a great cause for our winter Facebook ‘likes’ campaign as well as one with a moving story behind it.

More than two decades ago on Christmas Eve, Mariah Smith was abandoned as a newborn.

Mariah is now 22 and is the founder of the Virginia Beach-based nonprofit Blankets for the Homeless, a charity she set up as a teen.

Mariah was adopted and brought up in a loving household but she returned to the streets to help the homeless.

Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers is supporting Blankets for the Homeless in our winter Facebook ‘likes’ campaign. We will be donating $1 to the nonprofit for every like of our Facebook page up to $500. See this video to find out more about Blankets for the Homeless.

When she was 17, Mariah was eating at a Sonic restaurant when she saw a homeless man nearby who was shivering in the cold weather. Mariah pulled a blanket from her car, collected the food she’d just ordered and gave it to the man.

He wrapped the blanket around him and he started eating. The idea for a nonprofit was born at that moment. The teen went home and made a flier with her phone number on asking for donations of used blankets. Within a week, she had handed out more than 300 fliers at oceanfront hotels, schools, and churches. She received 50 blankets in two days.

“Since then it has grown into so much more than blankets. It’s hats, gloves, hoodies, jeans, walking shoes, tents, toiletries, basically anything that the homeless community needs,” she said.

“The need is always there and it’s always great. It just changes as the weather does.”

As well as homeless people on the streets, Blankets for the Homeless helps families who are living in transitory hotel accommodation and in their cars.

“A lot of  the time they are working and simply not making enough to put down a security deposit and get into an apartment,” Mariah said.

Over the holidays, Blankets for the Homeless runs a stocking and toy event. People in the community make stockings and fill them with toys. Blankets for the Homeless gives the stockings to people who live on the street, and hotels and their children.

“It gives them a special Christmas that they would not have otherwise,” Mariah said.

Read more about Blankets for the Homeless on its website.

Cooper Hurley supported Sugar Plum Bakery in our last Facebook ‘likes’ campaign. The bakery supports people with developmental disabilities. We presented will be presenting a check for $500 to the bakery this month.

Call Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers at (757) 333-3333.