What Kids Defense Team will be doing is having Christmas gifts available to children in Cecil County Maryland and Mercer County Pa.

If you apply for Christmas gifts the cut off date for asking for a gift for your child is November 18th.

Please when asking for help we need child age and gender.   There will be a one gift per child.

Kids Defense Team also needs to know where to send the gift to.

To donate just follow follow the link to the right that says Donation or contact support@kidsdefenseteam.org for shipping information. Please join in and help homeless, neglected, and under privileged children! Anything you give $1, $10, $100, a t-shirt etc. can help!

Over the next couple of weeks you will see more fundraisers and other ways you can help our your community’s children. If you have any questions about our new website or have any suggestions please contact robert.bedell@kidsdefenseteam.org.

I am challenging everyone to donate a dollar a week through Labor Day from their guilty pleasure.

Everyone must have a guilty pleasure.

Some people might have a guilty pleasure of

1. A glass of wine on the weekends
2. A night out for fun with your friends. (you could take a collection up for everyone to donate a dollar)
3. A trip to the baseball game.
4. A trip to the beach.
5. A long deserved vacation.
6. A trip to the zoo.
7. Off to Rita for some Yummy delights.
8. Your favorite take out.
9. A night out for dinner and a movie.
10. Boating on the water.
11. Fishing.
12. And the list goes on.

You can donate $1.00 to the Guilty Pleasure Fund Challenge

Click Here

So it’s important for parents to understand the risks and know how to prevent their kids from intentionally overdosing on cough and cold medicine.

Why Do Kids Abuse Cough and Cold Remedies?

Before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) replaced the narcotic codeine with dextromethorphan as an over-the-counter (OTC) cough suppressant in the 1970s, teens were simply guzzling down cough syrup for a quick buzz.

Over the years, teens discovered that they still could get high by taking large doses of any OTC medicine containing dextromethorphan (also called DXM).

Dextromethorphan-containing products — tablets, capsules, gel caps, lozenges, and syrups — are labeled DM, cough suppressant, or Tuss (or contain “tuss” in the title).

Medicines containing dextromethorphan are easy to find, affordable for cash-strapped teens, and perfectly legal. Getting access to the dangerous drug is often as easy as walking into the local drugstore with a few dollars or raiding the family medicine cabinet. And because it’s found in over-the-counter medicines, many teens naively assume that DXM can’t be dangerous.

Then and Now

DXM abuse is on the rise, according to recent studies, and easy access to OTC medications in stores and over the Internet could be contributing to the increase.

The major difference between current abuse of cough and cold medicines and that in years past is that teens now use the Internet to not only buy DXM in pure powder form, but to learn how to abuse it. Because drinking large volumes of cough syrup causes vomiting, the drug is being extracted from cough syrups and sold on the Internet in a tablet that can be swallowed or a powder that can be snorted. Online dosing calculators even teach abusers how much they’ll need to take for their weight to get high.

One way teens get their DXM fixes is by taking “Triple-C” — Coricidin HBP Cough and Cold — which contains 30 mg of DXM in little red tablets. Users taking large volumes of Triple-C run additional health risks because it contains an antihistamine as well.

The list of other ingredients — decongestants, expectorants, and pain relievers — contained in other Coricidin products and OTC cough and cold preparations compound the risks associated with DXM and could lead to a serious drug overdose.

Besides Triple-C, other street names for DXM include: Candy, C-C-C, Dex, DM, Drex, Red Devils, Robo, Rojo, Skittles, Tussin, Velvet, and Vitamin D. Users are sometimes called “syrup heads” and the act of abusing DXM is often called “dexing,” “robotripping,” or “robodosing” (because users chug Robitussin or another cough syrup to achieve their desired high).

What Happens When Teens Abuse DXM?

Although DXM can be safely taken in 15- to 30-milligram doses to suppress a cough, abusers tend to consume as much as 360 milligrams or more. Taking mass quantities of products containing DXM can cause hallucinations, loss of motor control, and “out-of-body” (disassociative) sensations.

Other possible side effects of DXM abuse include: confusion, impaired judgment, blurred vision, dizziness, paranoia, excessive sweating, slurred speech, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, headache, lethargy, numbness of fingers and toes, facial redness, dry and itchy skin, loss of consciousness, seizures, brain damage, and even death.

When consumed in large quantities, DXM can also cause hyperthermia, or high fever. This is a real concern for teens who take DXM while in a hot environment or while exerting themselves at a rave or dance club, where DXM is often sold and passed off as similar-looking drugs like PCP. And the situation becomes even more dangerous if these substances are used with alcohol or another drug.

Being on the Lookout

You can help prevent your teen from abusing over-the-counter medicines. Here’s how:

• Lock your medicine cabinet or keep those OTC medicines that could potentially be abused in a less accessible place.
• Avoid stockpiling OTC medicines. Having too many at your teen’s disposal could make abusing them more tempting.
• Keep track of how much is in each bottle or container in your medicine cabinet.
• Keep an eye out not only for traditional-looking cough and cold remedies in your teen’s room, but also strange-looking tablets (DXM is often sold on the Internet and on the street in its pure form in various shapes and colors).
• Watch out for the possible warning signs of DXM abuse listed above.
• Monitor your child’s Internet usage. Be on the lookout for suspicious websites and emails that seem to be promoting the abuse of DXM or other drugs, both legal and illegal.

Above all, talk to your kids about drug abuse and explain that even though taking lots of a cough or cold medicine seems harmless, it’s not. Even when it comes from inside the family medicine cabinet or the corner drugstore, when taken in large amounts DXM is a drug that can be just as deadly as any sold on a seedy street corner. And even if you don’t think your teens are doing it, chances are they know kids who are.

Source

This is from a mother who lost her job because of a heart condition.

Emails like this make our work worthwhile.

Anyone wishing to donate to Kids Defense Team so we can help more families like the Keyes please email pam.tomlinson@kidsdefenseteam.org

Just received the box of sneakers and clothes  for my girls. Thanks from the core of my heart  and if there is any way I could volunteer some of my time here in Phila for your organization let me know. My daughters are so greatful you should see them prancing around in their new outfits.  Their smiles are so big thank you thank you thank you.  I am out of work and time is hard and anything right now is a blessing.  Please thank all of your staff that had a part in this for the Keyes family and Ms. Pam thank you

Who would be interested in this event.

• We need Runner and/or Walkers
• Volunteers to help with the event.
• Volunteers to help organize the event.
• Help get the word out.
• Help get food and drink donations for the event.
• Contact law enforcement to get them to help with the event.
• Figure out a entrance fee that everyone would be comfortable with.
• Find out a good location to have the event.
• Figure out a good date and time for the event.

1. Step 1

   Sit down with key people to get things going. See the related eHow titled “How to Plan an Organizational Meeting.”

2. Step 2

   Identify the charity you want to support. For greater exposure, plan your event during a designated charity’s day or month. Set a date–rain or shine. Choose a starting time, and determine the length of the race and the route.

3. Step 3

   Decide how many participants your team (and the course) can successfully handle. An event with several thousand runners or walkers is a whole different beast than one with several hundred. The more participants, the more spectators come to watch.

4. Step 4

   Set a registration fee. For a short race like a 5K, charging runners and walkers a fee is preferable to having participants line up sponsors who pay by the mile.

5. Step 5

   Hold your initial planning meeting. Establish procedures and discuss policies for registration, media relations and publicity, volunteers, safety, traffic management, first aid and other services such as massage and foot care, food, rest rooms, accommodations, cleanup and entertainment.

6. Step 6

   Approach potential sponsors to help finance, publicize or even organize the event. Contact an athletic or sporting-goods store, a running club, a podiatrist, and local sports hero. Solicit corporate donations for water, energy bars, other snacks and sports drinks to be handed out along the route and at the end of the race. Sponsors will always want to promote their product with giveaways such as T-shirts, caps and water bottles.

7. Step 7

   Contact law enforcement agencies about local ordinances, road closures, traffic barricades, crowd control and security issues.

8. Step 8

   Get the word out to as many volunteers, runners and walkers as possible. See the related article “How to Publicize an Event” and contact a local TV station to see if it will get involved; maybe a news anchor is an avid runner.

Source

We received a check from IBG recently for a couple dollars shy of $3800.00

We promised all the money would go to help the children only.  There was no form we signed, it was a virtual agreement that we are more than happy to keep.

We plan to honor that agreement by making sure we help as many children as we can.

Kids Defense Team will still pay all our monthly bills out of President/CEO Pam Tomlinson personal pocket.

Money we received from IBG will be used ONLY to help the children.

So far we have bought $1050.00 in Walmart gift cards.

We applied for a corporate account with Kohls.   This is the only store we found that would give a discount on buying gift cards to businesses who are helping children.

Once we find out if we are accepted into the Kohls gift card program, if we are accepted we will use the rest of the money to buy gift cards from Kohls.

Since we did not have the funding for shipping clothing and we wanted to help as many children as possible, we decided that sending families gift cards to stores so they could purchase clothing would be the best way to get more bang for your buck.

So far we have sent a woman in Dover Delaware with two kids a $250.00 Walmart gift card.   Her husband moved with all their belongings while she was in the hospital, leaving her and her children without a place to live and no clothing.

We are going through our database to send out the rest of the Walmart gift cards that we have purchased.   Stay tuned for updates on who we have helped.

If you would like to make a donation to help families in our database please click the donation button to your left.   Or send a check or money order to

Kids Defense Team Inc.

P.O. Box 140

North East, Maryland 21901

All donations are tax deductible.

Help us support Kids Defense Team in helping children that are homeless and/or come from low income families.

We need volunteers.

• Marketing
• Public Relations
• Fundraising
• Web Design
• Adword Specialist
• Making Phone Calls
• Stufffing Envelopes
• Donating clothing and supplies and/or helping sort supplies.

If you have a talent we have a need for you.

We also have internship/externship for college students in

• Marketing
• Public Relations
• Fundraising
• Bookkeeping
• Quickbooks
• Access
• Cybercrime
• Photography
• Video Production
• Web Design
• Adword Specialist
• Volunteering in the community

KDT Facebook Fanpage

ROOSEVELT, N.Y. — Homelessness in rural and suburban America is straining shelters this winter as the economy founders and joblessness hovers near double digits — a “perfect storm of foreclosures, unemployment and a shortage of affordable housing,” in one official’s eyes.

“We are seeing many families that never before sought government help,” said Greg Blass, commissioner of Social Services in Suffolk County on eastern Long Island.

“We see a spiral in food stamps, heating assistance applications; Medicaid is skyrocketing,” Blass added. “It is truly reaching a stage of being alarming.”

The federal government is again counting the nation’s homeless and, by many accounts, the suburban numbers continue to rise, especially for families, women, children, Latinos and men seeking help for the first time. Some have to be turned away.

“Yes, there has definitely been an increased number of turnaways this year,” said Jennifer Hill, executive director of the Alliance to End Homelessness in suburban Cook County, Illinois. “We’re seeing increases in shelter use along the lines of 30 percent or more.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual survey last year found homelessness remained steady at about 1.6 million people, but the percentage of rural or suburban homelessness rose from 23 percent to 32 percent. The 2009 HUD report, which reflected the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2008, also found the number of sheltered homeless families grew from about 473,000 to 517,000.

Greta Guarton, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless on Long Island, led a recent group of about 40 volunteers to scour vacant lots and industrial parks for this year’s HUD survey; results are expected in several months.

“One of the things that we’ve noticed is a lot more unsheltered, mostly men who claim this is the first time they’ve been homeless, who indicate that it’s due to a loss of wages or loss of job, because of the economy,” Guarton said.

Stephanie Hawkins, who lost her manager’s job when a shelter for drug addicts and alcoholics closed last summer, is now among about a dozen or more “guests” living in a different kind of Long Island shelter — this one for women who have nowhere else to go.

“I lost my job and I lost my home,” said Hawkins, 44, fighting tears. Her issues are compounded by a cancer diagnosis that requires chemotherapy. “I lived where I worked.”

Nery Nij came to the United States from Guatemala six years ago. For much of that time he was a landscaper, manicuring the lawns of million-dollar seaside Hamptons estates. Most nights this winter, Nij joins dozens of day laborers and others who are provided shelter in church basements and auditoriums across eastern Long Island.

“There’s just no work,” Nij says in Spanish through an interpreter. “It’s a big challenge. If you have no work, you have no rent. If you have no rent, you’re out on the street.”

Naiquan Pritchett says he was devastated when he lost his job in construction about four months ago. His bills quickly mounted and he now lives in a Long Island shelter for men. “I had been doing construction for nine years,” Pritchett said.

The crunch is seen in suburbs around the country.

Northeast of Atlanta, foreclosures rose 77 percent from 2008 to 2009, said Suzy Bus of the Gwinnett County Coalition for Health and Human Services. About 60 percent of the county’s homeless are children 9 and younger, she said.

“People equate homeless to a guy under a bridge, but it’s a lot more complex than that, and it permeates much further into our society than a lot of people realize,” Bus said.

When families lose their homes and relocate, their children’s schooling can be disrupted. Some move into extended-stay hotels that cost about $175 a week, but that sometimes exposes them to criminal activity like prostitution and drug deals, Bus said.

In Coatesville, Pa., a former steel town of about 11,000 outside Philadelphia, the City Gate Mission added five beds to its shelter in November 2008. But director Jim Davis said that even with 21 beds, the shelter has still had to turn people away on many nights.

“There was a period of time recently where maybe as many as five people a day they would say no to by phone,” Davis said.

Even in the Hamptons, a summer playground for millionaires, demand is increasing for homeless services, according to Denis Yuen, director of Maureen’s Haven, a consortium of 25 churches on eastern Long Island. Churches alternate hosting the homeless on different nights, offering cots or inflatable beds and hot meals.

“This year we saw an influx of Latinos, some of whom had not worked in four or five months,” Yuen said. “They are living hand-to-mouth, depending on soup kitchens. Before this, they at least had a little work.”

Nadia Marin-Molina, executive director of the Workplace Project, a Latino advocacy group, said undocumented workers from Mexico or Central America have limited access to government-run shelters and depend on groups like Maureen’s Haven.

She said more must be done to determine how many homeless don’t benefit from either government or community aid. Part of the problem is that some undocumented live in fear of deportation and therefore avoid any interaction with authorities.

“There isn’t an understanding of how many people are living in the woods,” she said.

Daphne Haynes, who has operated the Peace Valley Haven shelters in Roosevelt, Long Island, finds homeless people seeking warmth in 24-hour coin-operated laundries, huddled behind shopping centers and in retail stores.

“Most of the problem I noticed with homeless that come stay with us is their family don’t want to be bothered with them,” Haynes said.

Tom Sweeney worked in private security for 25 years before the company folded. Now he stays at Peace Valley Haven.

“I didn’t have any money saved,” said Sweeney, who admitted battling drug and alcohol abuse in the past. “You gotta hustle to get something to eat, panhandle, do whatever you can. If you can find a warm bed, take it, because being on the street ain’t life as it’s supposed to be.”

Associated Press Writers Patrick Walters in Philadelphia, Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Caryn Rousseau in Chicago contributed to this report.

Source