Donation

ana. Malandro shared his posts and she asked people to donate supplies to the Downingtown VFW to be delivered. People shared those posts on social media and reached more people with the call to help.

“I know it is not directly affecting us here, but we are Americans and this is what we do,” Beam said in his Facebook post.

Malandro said the messages went viral and people even drove in from New Jersey to drop off donations here in Chester County.

“We began on Tuesday and we were overwhelmed by Thursday,” Malandro said. “We packed everything up and put them on trucks.”

She was thankful that people donated brand new clothes when she had hoped that people would be willing to donate used clothing. She also counted 50 cases of water among the donations. She expected to receive some donations, but then when they received enough clothing for children and adults of all ages and sizes, they asked for other items, such as diapers, toilet paper, baby formula, pet food, batteries, blankets, pillows and hygiene products, which people also donated.

“We had almost a full room of products,” Malandro said.

She said it was overwhelming emotionally to “see a united community” during such a dire time.

“I’ve never seen so much love for our fellow Americans,” Malandro said. “It’s a time that we needed to come together and we all did.”

She said everyone should be proud that they helped out their fellow Americans.

Volunteers help sort some of the donated items at the Downingtown VFW. The material was loaded onto trucks and his headed to those affected by Hurricane Harvey in Texas.