Meetings

Grateful Garment Project Fills Community Need

Lisa Blanchard, founder of The Grateful Garment Project (TGGP), joined one of our luncheon meetings in October to share information about the organization.

She started Grateful Garments as part of her graduation requirement. It was an idea to help people of any age who are sexually assaulted because all of their clothing is often taken for evidence. That would mean they might have to go home in paper scrubs. She started collecting new clothing to make it available at county hospitals for people who have had all their clothing confiscated.

She turned her idea into an organization that now makes clothing available throughout California—in county hospitals and other places where sexually assaulted adult and children are taken.

Grateful Garments’ mission is to ensure that every victim of a sexual crime who crosses the threshold of a Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) facility or who seeks medical attention and/or law enforcement involvement is provided with whatever new clothing, toiletries, snacks, and other miscellaneous items that they may require.

It has further expanded its mission and vision to encompass all victims of sexual violence. This includes, but is not limited to, Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) and victims of Human Sexual Trafficking (HST).

The organization now provides what’s needed for daily living when they are sent to an interim situation because their homes or wherever they might return to is no longer safe.

Grateful Garments also helps rehabilitate people who have been sexually assaulted—most of whom are generally under 24 years of age.

And, Lisa Blanchard has just begun to realize her dream.