For the month of July, the fellows were given an opportunity to design their own Challenge in the form of an individual impact project. Fellows were encouraged to reach out to a local nonprofit and use their particular skills and interests to impact the organization and their community.

Inspired by the work we did earlier in the year, two fellow fellows and I chose to spend 5 weeks working with COTS, Coalition on Temporary Shelter. COTS works to provide not only temporary shelter for families who have lost their home, but has a full suite of services designed to help people get back on their feet after life changing events. The staff at COTS is so passionate about and successful in the work that they do that it was a no-brainer to return to COTS for our July Impact project.

For our individual impact project, we challenged ourselves to use an event to attract and retain a younger donor base for COTS. During our original Challenge with the organization, they had expressed interest in a similar event and had also voiced a concern about a lack of summer event programming for donors. To address these issues, and allow ourselves a little event-based creativity, we decided to hold an event titled: “Turn up, Strip Down: A Detroit Flashion Show to benefit COTS.”

The event will be in the flash mob style and will take place in a public, outdoor space (to be released soon). Participants will #turnup dressed in several layers of trendy, donatable clothes at a specific time and location. Then, cued by music and a makeshift red carpet, participants will walk down the red carpet and #stripdown to a modest bathing suit. Attendees will be invited to mingle and learn more about COTS and ways to get involved at a brief social hour following the event. The clothes collected will be donated to TOTA, or Thrift on the Avenue who will donate 30% of any proceeds made of off donated items to COTS.

Like what you hear? Stay tuned for more information on the event details. In the meantime, check out COTS and their partners to see how you can contribute!

http://www.thriftontheave.com/

http://www.cotsdetroit.org/