Help out a great cause

When our neighbor Mary DeWerff saw that Dan would be spending a large amount of time in a hospital bed last summer, she decided she needed to make him a little bag to hold all his stuff.  She designed and produced a pouch that clipped easily to the bed and sent it to Dan, and from that point on, the bag was always at Dan's side.  Here's a picture of it between Dan and Sen Isakson:

Dan thought the bag was so useful that he asked Mary if she could make more for his buddies at Walter Reed.  Another soldier, home on leave from Afghanistan, stopped at Mary's house on Halloween, saw all the bags being made, and explained how similar they were to an equipment bag used by soldiers to hold random items, known as a dump pouch.  He suggested a name: The Dump Bag.

Mary and her friends at the Atlanta Sewing Guild have since made more than a hundred Dump Bags and sent them to Walter Reed.  She's been limited so far only by her ability to pay for supplies, but her goal is to provide Dump Bags to military hospitals around the country.  This is where you come in.

Pepsi Co is running a grant program called Refresh Everything in which the company gives away over a million dollars every month to worthy causes based on public voting.

Starting this Thursday, April 1, Mary's cause, the Dump Bag Project,  will be up on the Pepsi Refresh Everything website for voting.  Mary is hoping enough people will vote for the Dump Bag Project that her group will be awarded a $5,000 grant.

To vote, search for Dump Bag Project on the main page.  Voters can vote each and every day during April.  More information can be found on the Facebook Fan Page for Dump Bag Project, or by emailing dumpbagproject@bellsouth.net.

Vote early, vote often, and help us help a really great cause.  Thanks.