{"id":25422,"date":"2019-12-18T19:03:41","date_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25422"},"modified":"2020-01-02T18:01:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T23:01:06","slug":"pampered-pillowcase-project-is-holiday-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/pampered-pillowcase-project-is-holiday-success-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Pampered Pillowcase project is holiday success story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was an idea spearheaded\nby three Aurora students to make the holidays just a little bit brighter for\nwomen in need, but now the Pampered Pillowcase project has gone international.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded by Lexi,\nAmanda and Avery Benlolo in 2014, the Pampered Pillowcase started off with a\nsimple concept: filling a pillow case with toiletries, cosmetics, and a few\nother goodies to help women in need feel special at this time of year, working\nin tandem with the Women\u2019s Centre of York Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is evidently a\nsentiment that is shared well beyond York Region as the sisters prepare to\nwelcome a chapter in Tennessee into the fold, joining the ranks of other\nPampered Pillowcase groups in Montreal, New York City, and Long Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is so\namazing,\u201d says Avery Benlolo, a student at King\u2019s Country Day School, of the\nproject\u2019s growth. \u201cWe have been able to put together over 1,000 pillow cases\nfor women in need all across North America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially, the\nsisters spread word about their initiative with family and friends through\nsocial media, and the idea has simply snowballed from there. Just last month,\nthey welcomed dozens of their peers to their Aurora home to put the finishing\ntouches on another batch of pillow cases, filling more than 50 packages for\nclients not only of the Women\u2019s Centre of York Region but, for the first time\nthis year, Jewish Family & Child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe whole idea of\nthe Pampered Pillowcase is these are items that women would never even consider\ngoing out and buying for themselves,\u201d says Avery. \u201cThey are things that make\nwomen feel really special, so there are things like pyjamas, slippers, nail\npolish, some makeup products. Every year we have been able to find some\nadditions to add, but the staples and underlying value of what the Pampered\nPillowcase hasn\u2019t changed. Something we have been doing for the past couple of\nyears during the holiday season is we have not only been filling it with\nproducts, but we have each girl putting together pillowcases make a card, which\nis really nice as well. They have put in a card just saying, \u2018Happy Holidays.\nRemember someone is there for you. You\u2019re being thought of,\u2019 and they make\ntheir own personal message which, even though it is not this big tangible item,\nit really makes a difference in people\u2019s holiday season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiving a product is\none thing; really putting emotion and thought into it and including this\nmessage just saying, \u2018You\u2019re being thought of during the holiday season, we\nhope you\u2019re doing well,\u2019 I think gives it so much more value as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

November\u2019s in-house\nevent was their second annual \u201cPampered Pillowcase Stuffing Party.\u201d Ahead of\nthe event, the Benlolos contacted their partner organizations to get the needs\nof their clients, including slipper and pyjama sizes. Looking at the number of\npeople they could invite to the party, they set a target of stuffing 50 unique\ncases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each invited\n\u201cpacker\u201d is asked to bring 25 of a common item on the respective wish lists,\nsuch as bottles of nail polish, nail kits, and individual makeup bags.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the team was\nassembled they put together nothing short of an assembly line to get the job\ndone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is really nice\nbecause you\u2019re not only donating the items, we\u2019re actually seeing exactly where\nthey are going and what is being done with them,\u201d explains Avery. \u201cWhen you\u2019re\nputting together the donations yourself, you give it a little more thought and\nconsideration. One of the most important things to emphasize about our\ninitiative is women, especially during the holiday season, who are going to\nthese shelters and centres for support, they often are facing extreme\ndifficulty and hardship. Some people are coming from poverty, abuse and they\ndon\u2019t have any sort of time or money to spend on themselves. I think an\norganization like Pampered Pillowcase really makes them feel special and\nthought of \u2013 especially during the holiday season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As they prepare to\nwelcome another chapter to their growing group, Avery stresses that the more\nchapters out there making a positive difference in their community the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think this is\nsuch an amazing opportunity and such an amazing cause. We have already expanded\nacross North America, which is so amazing, and there is always room for more.\nWe\u2019re all very supportive with anyone expanding and my sisters and I are able\nto really help people out. It is really what it\u2019s all about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Lexi: \u201cWhen we\nstarted it, we didn\u2019t think it would get as big as it is. We\u2019re so lucky this\nis continuing to different universities such as Western and Queens and\nthroughout North America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information visit pamperedpillowcase.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was an idea spearheaded by three Aurora students to make the holidays just a little bit brighter for women in need, but now the Pampered Pillowcase project has gone international. Founded by Lexi, Amanda and Avery Benlolo in 2014, the Pampered Pillowcase started off with a simple concept: filling a pillow case with toiletries, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2019-12-18-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6C2","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 06:03:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}