In its second year, the Warm & Fuzzy Project is on its way to collect socks and gloves for three shelters in Atlanta in hopes to help the needy stay warm in the winter season. Co-founder Kennedy Garner, 16, along with her classmates at Langston Hughes High School, held the drive last Saturday at Café Nineteen in Atlantic Station.

The project started when Garner was sightseeing in Atlanta with her mother, Michele Lewis, and older sister, Tyler Garner, in fall 2009. After seeing a man who had no outerwear to keep him warm, the three women, from Fairburn, made an effort to bring him warm clothing, but found him gone. The disappointment led the two teenagers to start the Warm & Fuzzy Project to help the needy in the cold winter months of Atlanta.

“We want to help in a small way to people who don’t have basic necessities, but these small things that make a big difference to someone,” said Garner, who hopes to attend Spelman College to study civil engineering.

The first year brought in over 1,000 donations to the project which has distributed the donations to the Atlanta Bay Shelter, Atlanta Union Mission and Atlanta Children’s Shelter. Additionally, 10 percent of the donations are sent to New York’s Safe Horizon Shelter and Niles Home for Children in Kansas City, Mo., due to the cities’ longer winters. Since 2009, Warm & Fuzzy Project has collected over 5,000 items for donations.

“We received donations year-round because we want to make this initiative grow bigger and start effecting larger communities around the country,” said Lewis. “Most importantly, I hope the message that we send out is that youth should affect the community to make it a better place for everyone.”

To get involved with the Warm & Fuzzy Project, visit www. warmandfuzzyproject.com

Story Update: On Oct.18, Doing Good covered Treat The Troops cookie packing event at The Cumming Library-Main Branch that packaged 3,900 Thanksgiving cookies for troops overseas. The Christmas packing event was held on Dec. 6 and the community rallied to send 10,680 cookies, or 890 dozen, to troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.