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Local volunteers organize blanket drive By Buffy Pollock Updated: Nov 14, 2022 05:32 PM A A Carolyn Wheeler is hosting a blanket/sleeping bag drive so she can hand out warming supplies on Thanksgiving. [Jamie Lusch / Mail Tribune] Hoping to offer some comfort and warmth to unhoused community members this Thanksgiving holiday, a tiny band of volunteers are rounding up piles of sleeping bags, warm (preferably weatherproof) blankets and other supplies to distribute with sack lunches this coming weekend (Nov. 19-20) along the Bear Creek Greenway. Gold Hill resident Carolyn Wheeler spearheaded her own informal group, Community Cook and Connect, via social media as a way to help care for neighbors in her community. The original goal was to provide homecooked meals — usually freezer meals — for locals facing tough times. With the holiday season — and cold weather — gearing up, she wanted to do more. “Everything we do is basically about keeping people fed and warm. We do a lot of freezer meals to keep people going when they’re going through something and they’re not able to cook or get something to eat,” Wheeler said. “For example, I had a mom that had cancer, and it made her sick to cook, so we made her a week’s worth of freezer meals so that all she had to do was take one out to thaw in morning and heat it up in the evening when she got home. Another neighbor broke her leg, so it was hard to cook. It’s not a big thing, but it means a lot when someone is having a hard time.” “Having a hard time,” is something of which Wheeler said she has firsthand knowledge. “I didn’t have any food when I was a kid. I had to steal food. I was very underfed. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve always had a thing for people at least eating, and I’m really big on cooking and feeding people,” she said. “When people are facing hard times, they’ll spend money on rent and electricity for their kids to be warm and sheltered. But the last thing they do is buy food.” Wheeler is an avid cook, so feeding people and showing compassion for her community is second nature. Since she began the project to provide freezer meals, she inadvertently acquired donations of blankets, camping gear, coats and other items — useful items that donors asked her to pass along to those in need. She’s hopeful the items will lift some spirits this holiday season. She said she felt sad when she heard there may not be as many places as usual this Thanksgiving offering hot, sit-down meals. “So we’re doing the sleeping bags and blankets and sack lunches. We just want people to be warm and to be fed!” She added, “We all get so wrapped up in our own lives and our own stuff. These are the kinds of things we need to be doing as fellow human beings on this planet. … Most of us get to spend Thanksgiving with our families. These people are all alone, out in the cold.” To contact Wheeler, who will arrange pickup of items, see facebook.com/MedfordCCC/ or call or text (text preferred), 503-789-3627. Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 541-776-8784 or [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.