Giving Hope in Hampton Roads

12/31/2024

Happy New Years Eve all!!
So we wanted to share with you all that Giving Hope will be on hiatus until our 4th Annual Helping Hands Fall Festival and Fundraiser to be held on September 20th 2025 at the Poquoson Museum.
Some things have transpired over the past couple of months, and there are family members in several families on our team that are declining, therefore we are having to focus our attention on family and not events.
This past year was not a very productive year due to the economy, and we feel that it's best for our team to take this necessary time off to do the right thing by our families and put Giving Hope on the back burner for now. This is not saying we won't have a pop up event maybe in the fall, after the festival, but as of right now, it will just be the festival.
We hope you all understand that we have to do right by our families that we are kin too first and think about the extra stuff second. If you would like to participate in the fall festival September 20, please send an email to us at [email protected] and once the application is complete we will begin to send them out. We are going to be very selective as to who will be chosen to be in this event and there will be an agreement for every single vendor to fill out before ANY applications are sent out, and if you do not complete the form, you will not be considered. We will have a strict limit on how many and who does what. Food trucks that would like to participate also will need to send an email and the cost of ALL food vendors will be $125.00. In closing, we want you to know how much we appreciate you all and love you as family. We hope that 2025 will be a huge turning point for our economy and our country.

Thank you!!
Karen Whaley & Laura Rifenberry

12/30/2024

From Giving Hope to your families…
Happy New Year!

12/24/2024

From our families to yours!!!
God Bless you all!!

12/15/2024

Giving Hope 2024 and we were blessed to help so many this year. See you next year!!

12/15/2024

Happy Sunday from Giving Hope!! We here at Giving Hope would like to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! We will be closed starting tomorrow 12/16-1/3/2025. If you have any questions please send an email to [email protected] and we will get back with you after the new year. We will also have some dates coming up very soon.

12/03/2024

Happy Tuesday everyone!!! Today is also Giving Tuesday, and we still have the kids toy drive going on as they will be picking up the items on Monday. If you would like to donate to the kids or the mom's we would love your help.. They can always use Food Lion gift cards or Wal-Mart gift cards to buy something to eat or something that they may need. Or if you want to make a stocking for the kids and we can all help fill it with toothbrushes, toothpaste, lotions, socks, gloves.... So if you can... we would love to have some extra things to donate to them.
If you are feeling really giving, please go to Homesfurhounds.org and donate to our rescue that we volunteer and help out. Pets need love too. Thank you for your time...

Send a message to learn more

11/28/2024

From everyone here at Giving Hope in Hampton Roads…

11/28/2024

Happy Thanksgiving GH Family!
We will be closed starting December 11 and we will reopen January 6th 2025.

Upcoming events will be posted hopefully by January 1st.

11/21/2024

Good evening GH family so we are so happy that even though we had to cancel this event, we are still working hard to give these sweet kids an amazing Christmas! So we have covered all the basis, but these children need some new, warm winter clothes. Can anyone help us out? We are taking donations through Monday and before you ask… yes we have supplied all these kids with new coats, hats and gloves. We have 3 drop off locations, one in VA Beach, Yorktown and Poquoson. If we could get some things like books, games, and much needed clothing items, that would be great. We have 7 single moms and one has both mom and dad, so if you can help with something for them as most of these families live in hotels and we want everyone to have a Merry Christmas!!! We are asking our Giving Hope family to help us out. Everything must be new with tags toys must be new as well. Anything helps, even Food Lion gift cards to get food. Please let Laura or Karen know. We love you all and we would appreciate any help.

Have a blessed night. ❤️❤️

#1: 7 yr old boy - 7/8 clothing (hoodies), socks, Pete the Cat Stuffed animal, Race cars, Spidey and friends

#2: 6 yr old boy –Size 6 clothing, Hot Wheels, Dinosaurs

#3: 11 yr old boy - Size 10/12 clothes, Baltimore Ravens items, football/outdoor sports items

#4: 11 yr old girl – art supplies, nail supplies, stuffed animals XS women’s

#5: 11 yr old girl – Hat/gloves, art supplies, hair/nail supplies, lotions SM women’s

#6: 10 yr old girl – Sharpies, Drawing supplies, art books, colored pencils, stuffed animal toys SM women’s

#7: 6 yr old boy – Superheroes, Avengers, Dinosaurs, remote control cars

#8: 3 yr old girl - 4T clothing, Paw Patrol toys, Barbies, Cocomelon

11/11/2024

Hello GH family... if you have signed up for the 11/23 event, please check your email. Thank you!!!

Have a good week!!!

11/05/2024

Our team is strong and we will be coming into 2025 with the best of the best vendors and we will have a great year. Happy November!!

11/04/2024

Good evening, Giving Hope Family!

We've had some recent additional requests for help this holiday season. Unfortunately, we are unable to aid any additional families other than the ones that Social Services had previously contacted us about. We try to help as many people as possible, but we cannot overextend ourselves.

11/03/2024

Well GH family... HERE IS THE NEWS!!!
After much consideration and prayers, we have decided to keep the doors OPEN!!!! There may be a little change at the beginning of the year, but we will keep you all updated!!! We love our vendors and we want you all to have events that make everyone happy, and we want happy vendors, ones that care about our causes... YES, we want you all to make sales, but we also want everyone to be involved in making a difference in the lives of people and other non-profits that need help. So we are going to revamp our name, our application and logo. In the coming weeks, prior to January 1st 2025 we (the GH Organization) will be putting together a new application, new name and new logo, and with that will be a vendor agreement form that all vendors must read, fill out and email back to us prior to your acceptance into any and all of our events. We have been in talks with several event planners and they have helped us reach this decision to make things easier and more clearly for all to understand. They have also helped us to design this agreement and it will remain in effect for the entire 2025 event season. This way it will be easy for us to track who is bringing what and if the limit is met, then you will be unable to bring certain items. So please be on the lookout for these changes. We are happy to announce this as we did not want to close our doors, but we also will not be mistreated, or be sent hate mail because you (the vendor) don't agree with everything that goes on or said. If you have done nothing wrong, please know that you will no longer get an email. If you happen to do something wrong, we as a team will speak with you privately and work the situation out... we LOVE our vendors and we do not want you to feel hurt, unappreciated, or unwanted. We are all about LOVE and HOPE.... not HATE.
With all do RESPECT.... if you cannot understand where we are coming from, then kindly remove yourself from our group. We don't want you to feel obligated, but everywhere we go, we have rules to follow, so you all will have to follow what we do as well. Thank you all who have been here for us and to those that have not been happy, you can ALWAYS reach out to us and we will talk and work whatever the situation is out.

Much Love!!!
Giving Hope

11/02/2024

I, Laura Rifenberry, have stayed quiet long enough but feel as though I need to say my peace against those that have had said nothing but hate and discontent towards Giving Hope in Hampton Roads and to my co-President Karen Whaley, and it has been appalling!!

I have been a vendor with Giving Hope for the past three years and was asked earlier this year to be part of the team and to help with assisting and finding vendor locations. I loved what the organization stood for and the various benefactors that benefitted from the vending events that were held. I especially like meeting, talking and getting to know our vendors from the surrounding areas.

I have been a direct sales consultant for the past seven years and have attended various events all over the southside and peninsula. I have been to successful events and not only made my event fee back but came out in the positive money wise. There have also been events where I only had one to two sales not making near to what my vendor fee was. Instead of complaining to the vendor coordinator, I made it a point to see what I was possibly doing right or wrong and vowed to change it prior to the next event. When the coordinators have made flyers, requesting the vendors to share, I have shared them on both my personal and business pages. NOT every coordinator can pay for television or newspaper coverage as that entails additional fees, BUT Karen Whaley has gotten television coverage for many of our events AND paid OUT OF HER POCKET to boost advertising on our site when she DIDN’T HAVE TO.

Now that I am an event coordinator for two organizations, I know the importance of communication with my vendors, AS WELL as having the vendors communicating back, and answering emails in a timely fashion. Emergencies arise no doubt, but with ANY event the coordinator is “expecting” the vendor to arrive, and when there is a no call or no show, it puts stress on them. There are many behind the scenes that the public does NOT see, such as spacing and ensuring that there are not too many vendors providing the same items. We try to make it fair for all, and when vendors take it upon themselves to “show up when they want,” “bring other items not listed on the application,” and “belittle those attempting to help” other coordinators will kindly ask you to leave and not include you in any future events.

We unfortunately DO NOT control Virginia’s weather NOR do we control the foot traffic. WITHOUT VENDOR ASSISTANCE. THIS IS WHY WE SEND YOU THE FLYER TO SHARE ON YOUR PAGE, AT YOUR WORK, WITH YOUR FRIENDS, ETC.

When we need to change the reasoning behind our donations (vendor fees and raffle ticket sales) due to personal reasons, we would hope that the vendors would support any other cause chosen. Our October 26th Monster Mash Bash was to help raise money for a child cancer patient and family to help with medical bills. Unfortunately, the child passed away during the time this event was set and the actual date. Not that it is ANY OF YOUR BUSINESS, the family has been grieving for their only child. We, Giving Hope, reached out to various communities and were asked by Social Services if we could help eight children of various ages by giving them a decent Christmas with some items that they requested, such as art items, stuffed animals, and some clothing. If you had or have a problem with us changing our benefactor, then perhaps you should take a step back and re-evaluate what is important in your life.

We are Giving Hope for a reason because we try to give hope to those such as cancer patients, food drives, restoration of historic buildings, and families in need. We are an ALL-VOLUNTEER group, so nobody should be pointing a finger or bad mouthing this wonderful organization!!

PEACE OUT

11/02/2024

You will not break me!! Big changes coming!!