Months before the campaign launches, Alexandra Ennest, the marketing coordinator for the Lansing Two Men and a Truck location, started reaching out to local business and companies to see if they wanted a drop box to start collecting donations.

“Some locations are more, they just kind of have a competition between office staff where other locations, such as the libraries, really rely heavily on their customers to come in and bring those donations,” Ennest said.

In 2016, the Lansing location gathered more than 8,200 items. This year, the staff hopes to collect 10,000.

The company collects all of the drop boxes on Mother’s Day, when they sort through each item to make sure every donation is either brand new or unused. The items are then divvied up between five local  shelters.

Laura Grimwood is the director of communications for the City Rescue Mission of Lansing and said the women who receive these donations around Mother’s Day feel empowered and hopeful. The personal hygiene products the campaign collects help women feel clean and go about every day without having to worry about things like body odor. It also helps them look for work more confidently.

“We have umbrellas on the list, too, because when a woman’s out looking for work, they’re doing a lot of walking and getting on and off the bus,” Grimwood said.

Ennest said the purpose of the whole campaign is to recognize the moms who are struggling around Mother’s Day because the company itself has such strong ties with women.

“Mary Ellen Sheets really started the company and we’ve had so many women in key leadership roles across the company that it just made sense to support women and to raise them up during a time of need,” Ennest said.