Update

Hi everyone, it has been a little over a month since I have updated this blog. A lot of sad things have happened to me personally since then. Threads For Teens is going great, but I would like to elaborate on the things going on in my personal life right now.

I go to Ursuline High School, and as many people already know, it is closing. Our whole school was delivered this news a couple of weeks ago with no warning signs at all. It was one of the worst school days ever. I am very disheartened about this news and wish that something could have been done to reverse the decision. However, I will be attending Cardinal Newman High School in the fall. CN was very generous in accepting all of us Ursuline girls. We are definitely most thankful. Here are a few newspaper article about the closing:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20101110/ARTICLES/101119937

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20101110/ARTICLES/101119991

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20101111/ARTICLES/101119870


Now, onto Threads For Teens related news. Right now I am currently in the process of applying for a 501 c 3. It is a very long process and I just turned in my paperwork. Hopefully that will get everything rolling and it will go a bit faster. Thankfully, I am wroking with a lawyer so I don't have to do this all on my own.

I don't have much to say right now! I am kind of just in a waiting period. There will be an update when I have more information to tell. Hopefully that will be sooner than later!! :)

SEE YOU SOON!
-Allyson Ahlstrom

"This is like a dream"

Hello bloggers! I hope all is well since the last time this was updated. So much new stuff has happened since then. I feel terrible since I have not put on a new post with all of this information. Please forgive me.

We had several GREAT newspaper articles written about us:

The Press Democrat

click HERE

The Windsor Times

click HERE

The press has really helped a lot with getting the word out there. Hopefully there will be some news crews coming up soon to film. We have had some interest. :)

So far there have been seventeen girls that have come in. Seeing these girls face as they walk in, has been so incredible. I can see how grateful they all are. Today, a girl came into the shop that was so cute.

She loved everything and had a blast. I kept hearing her say "This is like a dream," "I can't believe this is happening to me," or "This is every girl's dream!" That is what I LOVE about doing this. This isn't about me at all, it is about these girls. Although I feel that I have received something larger than these girls. It has been as much a blessing for me as it is for them.

Today I spoke at my church. I enjoyed it a lot! Thank you Redwood Covenant Church! Here is a video of the interview.

Other stuff that is going on, is that Threads For Teens is becoming it's own 501 c 3! That is GREAT news. I will let you know exactly when that happens. If you would like to send a donation please email me at this address:

allysonbrianna@gmail.com

Here are some pictures of the shop:

Please become a fan on facebook as well!

click HERE

That's all for now!

Watch out for more! :)

Allyson Ahlstrom

MONDAY

Sorry I haven't posted in a while! I have been EXTREMELY busy. I know that I keep saying that, but it's the truth. Anyway, so I'm going to give a recap of Monday.

Well, we got to finally start setting up the storefront! We brought everything from the storage unit over and started hanging stuff up. Then, a reported from the Windsor Times came and took some pictures. That was pretty cool! HERE is a link to the article. After that we went over to Coddingtown Mall because they said we could take clothing racks from the old Gottschalks. That was actually a lot of fun.

After that we went back and continued to set everything up. We pretty much finished that night, so for Tuesday, we only had a couple of things that we had to do. Anyway, after that we went to Office Depot because the people that donated the space, the DenBeste's, said that we should fill the backpacks we were giving away with school supplies. Thank you much Mr. & Mrs. DenBeste!!!

Then we went home. It was really fun. Okay so tomorrow I'm going to recap tuesday!!!

TTYS!

-Allyson Ahlstrom

PS: remember to suggest people to become fans of our facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Threads-For-Teens/10150105122060512?ref=ts

This week is finally here!

WOW! Tomorrow the Threads For Teens Event begins. I have been waiting for this moment since January, and it's really a great feeling. In less than 24 hours Threads For Teens will have it's very first customers. These past two days it has been a mad dash of getting all of the last minute things together. I will start with a quick recap of saturday.

On saturday a very good friend of mine named Kayla came down to visit me here in Sonoma County. I have known her since the second grade. :) I felt kind of bad because our whole day was spent running errands for the project, but nevertheless we had a ton of fun.

The first thing we did was go to Wet Seal where we spent a couple of minutes speaking with managers and getting the necessary approvals to obtain some of there unused clothing racks for Threads' boutique. While we were there, a grand opening sort of event was going on and there was a raffle to be entered. My mom, sister, Kayla and I entered the raffle, of course not expecting to win at all.

Next we did some shopping, looking for some clothing tops to make our inventory a bit larger. While we were at TJ Maxx shopping around, we came across these really cute, reusable shopping bags that were really big. The best part was that they only cost 99cents!!! Of course we picked out eleven of them so that the girls would have something to carry home their clothing choices. I wish I had a picture to show! I'll try and remember to take one tomorrow. :)

After that we got a phone call saying that Kayla had won the raffle at Wet Seal! She was so happy because Kayla seems to think that she has bad luck, because she was never won anything before. Well, now she can't say that as she is the proud new owner of a bucket of candy...wrappers...we ate all of the candy right after she won it. Kayla was very generous and made sure to share a ton.

We went to the storage unit after going to Wet Seal again to pick up the candy and then went to my storage unit where I had fun showing Kayla around. We tried on some outfits and had a lot of fun! I will put up some pictures.

The last thing we did before she had to leave was make a poster boards with all of the names and logos of places that donated to Threads For Teens. We didn't really budget our time well, so the majority of the poster was made in the car while driving her back to her grandma's house in Napa. Let me tell you, it was an absolute blast! Glitter glue was all over the car, ourselves and the poster. We both got so much glitter on each other that we had to take an "emergency" bathroom break to get it off. I will take a picture of that tomorrow. All around, it was an excellent day and I'm so happy that I got to spend it with such a great friend.

That's all for now! I have to get back to work and finish some last minute things. I will do a recap of monday soon, today and the days to come. Look out for those posts.

XOXOXO

Allyson Ahlstrom

so soon

In less than TWO WEEKS the Threads For Teens event will take place. I cannot believe it! Lately, I been working on making sure that all last minute details are in place. This is includes, going through inventory, getting clothing sizes for the girls, picking up hangers and clothing racks, and all of that crazy stuff!

Something exciting that I did last night was have a meeting to organize a press release. It should be sent out next week. Now, if you don't know what a press release is, here is an explanation. Basically it is sent out to different media outlets (newspapers, magazines, radio stations, tv stations, etc.) and if any of the media outlets are interested in doing a piece on what is in the press release they will contact the person that sent it out. So, it would be so amazing if any media outlet picked up the story of Threads For Teens, because it would give it so much more publicity and the chance for more people to donate. This could help out so much!

That's all for now!

Allyson Ahlstrom

the time is almost here!

Everything is happening so quickly! In 17 days Threads For Teens will have officially kicked off. I seriously cannot believe how great everything has gone and that this project has became so much bigger than I ever thought that it would become. Of course, I could never be able to have done this all on my own. So many tremendous people have helped me out throughout these past couple of months and without them, Threads For Teens will not be what it is today. Anyway, this blog post is not dedicated to thank you's. That will be coming in a later blog.

Lately I've mostly been dedicating my time to picking up last minute donations and documenting them so I know what I need to buy. I have also started picking up some items that were not donated, but I needed to "fill in the gaps". I have received several VERY generous cash donations. You do not know how much those are helping this project.

The other big, big thing that I have been working hard with? Finding girls to come and "shop" at the boutique. This really has been so humbling because these girls I'm working with have so little. It is my privilege to help them out. Honestly, if everybody in the world were to just dedicate a little time each week to volunteer at something they believe in, we might not have as many problems in the world as we do today. This whole notion reminds me of the song "If Everybody Cared" by Nickelback. It's a really great song, and really makes you think. I would highly recommend listening to it.

Well, I'll put some pictures up later! I know that reading all of this is probably quite boring, but I didn't really have much of anything to take a picture.

TTYS!

-Allyson Ahlstrom

I GOT A STOREFRONT DONATED!!!!

Okay, wow I'm so excited to share this news with everyone. I was very worried that I wasn't going to get a storefront donated for the project, but two very kind and generous people donated a GORGEOUS place for this project to happen. I went to see it yesterday, and took some pictures to share with you guys.

Isn't it great!!! Well, that's all for now. I've been working a TON lately so expect more blog updates.

TTYS

Allyson Ahlstrom

Wow, it has been a month!

Summer is almost here! I'm so excited because that will mean that I am out of school, relaxing and winding down from freshmen year. I honestly cannot believe that it all has gone by so fast. Ursuline has just been so great to me, the teachers, the students and the faculty. I absolutely adore going to Ursuline. On another note, summer getting here means that work on my project will start speeding up a ton.

Over these past couple of months, I have been hard at work collecting donations. In these coming days (months), I will be working a TON making sure that this whole project itself happens. That will mostly include choosing the girls and setting up a space. At this point in time, the donations that have been given are pretty much enough to outfit ten girls. I really just need to get jewelry and accessories for everything to be complete. I would also have liked make-up to have been included, but I wasn't able to receive any.

Choosing the girls, seems to me like a daunting task. I want to make sure that the girls chosen are absolutely perfect. I will get it done very soon though. Please pray for me about that. Also, please just pray for this project in general! That would seriously mean the world to me. :)

Now, onto some fun stuff! I haven't really updated with donations lately, so I'll do a little mini-update right now...with pictures!!! This is a picture of stuff received from the VERY popular jean company, Miss Me! I'm so ecstatic that Miss Me sent stuff for the project, they are so great and many girl love their clothing. Please excuse the bad quality of the picture, I took it with my webcam.

Also, besides the donation from Miss Me, I have received very thoughtful and large donations from Tommy Hilfiger, Joes Jeans, and Hot Topic! I will put up pictures later...also I'm going to be doing a blog post abut some inventory I did a while back with my aunt when she was visiting from New York.

I have to go now and study for finals.... :P But, I will update soon!!!

Thank you!

-Allyson Ahlstrom

Lots of new things!

So I mentioned a while back that I was going to be speaking at my church, and I've been meaning to post an update about it. I spoke last sunday in front of both services. It was so fun! I met a lot of really nice people afterwards and got several pledged donations.

Some of the things that I had been needing were a seamstress, and hangers. Well, now I have both! I haven't received the hangers yet, but I think I'll start getting some tomorrow. Really everybody was so nice and so many people wanted to help out. It was very exciting. A video was made, I will post it when I get it.

In other news, I will start picking the girls soon! It has come up so fast. I mean, I remember back in january when I first started this and not even knowing if I would ever get to that point. Well, here I am! I'm kind of nervous, but I'm sure that everything will go well.

I'm going to the storage unit today, going to pick somethings up that need a little fixing. I really feel like such a slacker lately, because I haven't been able to work on Threads For Teens as much as I would like to. That's what happens though in last quarter. :P Thankfully summer is almost here.

That's all for now!!

Ttys!

-Allyson Ahlstrom

Tommy Hilfiger

I just wanted to do a quick update saying that I got a very nice donation from Tommy Hilfiger. They were one of the first companies to respond to me, granting a donation. So, for the past couple of months, I have been corresponding with Betsy Hilfiger, and she's been so great. Thank you Betsy and everybody at Tommy Hilfiger. :)

Other than that, I don't have much to say. I've just been really busy with school. I cannot wait for summer. I promise I'll have more later!

TTYS!

-Allyson Ahlstrom:)

Inventory!

Today my mom, sister and I went to the storage unit to do inventory. Let me tell you, I thought that this would be super easy. It was not easy at all. I now have a newfound respect for anybody that works in retail.

The reason that I wanted to do inventory was because I really needed to know what type of clothing that I was in need of. People that donate keep asking me if there's any specific sizes that I need, and I have lately been telling them, whatever works. Well, after organizing everything and seeing what I have, I definitely know what's needed.

I have to say, one thing that was really cool was being able to hang everything up and seeing what's been donated. The clothes are all so great. I know that the people that sent these donations to me really put time and effort into what they sent. Everything so far is just so fabulous. Nothing at all is cheap or not well made.

I know that for the past couple of blog entries I have been promising pictures. Today I'm finally following through with that promise! My mom took a bunch of pictures today. :) I don't really have much else to say, just that this whole project is going so much better than I ever thought that it would. Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this type of success.

Me holding up a super cute wedge that was donated. :)

Action photo! Buttoning up a jacket. :)

Formal Dresses!

Holding up a really cute shoe from Blowfish Shoe

Some of the super cute tops!

Standing with one of the racks of clothes:)

So, that's all for now! I don't know if I mentioned this in my last blog post or not, but I will be speaking at my church April 18th! I'm very excited. If you can come that day that would be super incredible. I go to Redwood Covenant Church.

Also, if you happen to have hangers that you don't need, I REALLY could use them. Please email me. allysonbrianna@gmail.com

TTYL!

Allyson Ahlstrom

Wow.

I feel so bad! I haven't posted for 11 days. This won't happen again! I have just been so busy lately with having a lot of homework since it's getting towards the end of the year. Anyway, I'll really try to post more often.

So, I guess I haven't really had anything happen since then. I made my website, which I already updated about. Let me tell you, that was sooo hard to make! If I do say so myself, I think that it turned out pretty good though. Make sure that when you type in the address, you add in the www. or else some lame register.com ad comes up. I'm working on fixing that. If you haven't looked at it, make sure to check it out. www.threadsforteens.com

Well, about what's going on the with the project. I am going to start doing inventory this weekend, so that I can figure out what I have so far. I'm actually kind of looking forward to doing this, just to really look at what has been donated.

Donations just keep coming in! You don't know how great that is. When I first thought of this project, I never really knew how big that it was going to be. Everybody has just been so great and nice and generous. It's absolutely amazing! Seriously, I don't think that anybody really ever had a clue.

I'm going to be speaking at my church April 18th. That will be awesome. If you any of you guys want to come, let me know!

I promise that I will do an update with pictures soon! I know that whenever I read a blog, pictures are what make it interesting and not just look like a big bunch of blah, blah, blah. Look out for a big post saturday or sunday!

Also, it would be absolutely fantabulous if you all would become a fan of my facebook page. It would be so cool to have 100 fans.

Click HERE to become a fan.

:)

-Allyson Ahlstrom

New website!!!

Check it out and let me know what you think! :)

www.threadsforteens.com

-Allyson Ahlstrom

Rejection Letters

Now, one thing that I have refrained from writing about are rejection letters. I didn't really see a purpose of writing about something that isn't going to happen. Plus, I totally understand that there are different reasons people can't donate. Company policy, money issues, whatever. I don't have a problem with it at all. Rejection is something that comes along with doing something like this. Besides, I believe that the more rejections you get, the closer you are to getting something huge. So bottom line, rejections do not bother nor discourage me. Nevertheless, there is something that bothers me immensely. I'm going to backtrack a little.

As everybody knows I have been sending out letters and follow-up emails and so forth. Well, for a certain company I sent a follow-up email as I had not heard anything back from the letter that I had mailed, which is totally normal. I have sent out many follow-up emails. Anyway, today I got a response from this certain company and it really bothered me. You can read what it said.

Dear Allyson:

Thank you for writing to [BLANK].

Thank you your interest in our company.

We get many requests from students for this type of information. Unfortunately, we have a company policy not to release corporate information with regards to sales, expenses, strategies or programs for any departments.

The [BLANK] Inc. owns and operate several retail divisions, including [BLANK].

Corporate information can be found on our website.

Good luck with your project.

Thank you for choosing [BLANK].

Sincerely,

[BLANK]

As you can tell from reading that letter, this company didn't even have it correct as to what they were rejecting me for. I mean seriously, it's like they read the first sentence of my letter and didn't even read the rest. Oh well. It's fine, it just kind of bothered me.

Okay, well I'm going to do a big update tomorrow or the next day with pictures! I know that all of you guys can't wait!

TTYL!

-Allyson Ahlstrom

Crazy week!

This week has been really good so far! I have gotten so many things taken care of. I'm going to do it in list form. :)

• A lovely storage unit place donated a store unit to store all of my items in! I'm very happy about that because my room has been getting a little crowded. I actually went to the place today and checked it out, and it's so nice and spacious. PLUS it comes with clothing racks and hangers! I was so surprised when I got there and saw all of that. It's one more thing off of my list that I don't have to do.
• Innovative Screen Printing donated custom t-shirts that will have our logo on the front, and all of the donors on the back. I was super excited when I got that email because that is something that I always keep talking about trying to pull together, but until this weekend I hadn't really started on that. Within 20 minutes of emailing, I had a response! Anyway, if you ever need a custom t-shirts, make sure to check them out!
• I got THREE donations within these past two days! I'm very ecstatic about them all, because they're from three such great and relevant places. I can't wait to post more info.
• Okay, so everybody should check out Blowfish Shoe's blog! I did an interview with them a while back, and they posted it! It's so cool seeing it on the website. Click HERE to see it and if you feel so inclined, maybe leave a comment? ;)
• On the topic of Blowfish shoes, I received a huge box from them filled with the cutest shoes ever. Next time you need a pair of shoes, make sure to consider them!

Well, that's all for now! Talk to you soon!

XOXO

Allyson Ahlstrom

I feel like a slacker!

I haven't really updated my blog lately! That's okay though, I have some exciting news now. :)

Well this week I received some lovely nail polish in the mail OPI. I was so excited to get that! All of the colors are gorgeous and just perfect! I was so happy to receive that. And also, I will be receiving a couple of things in the mail hopefully this week or next week. I'll post pictures when I get the stuff!

I also got two emails this week from interested companies, keep your fingers crossed! I really hope that they work! If they do, that would be amazing, because these places are places that I'm sure you know of and like. :)

Here's a picture of me and some of the nail polish!

OH I MADE A FACEBOOK FAN PAGE!!!! BECOME A FAN!!!!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Threads-For-Teens/10150105122060512?ref=ts

TTYS!

-Allyson

.

Okay so yesterday I finally finished stuffing almost all of the envelopes that I had originally planned to do. That was quite a large accomplishment for me. The only thing now that I have to do is get more places to send letters too, that is getting really hard though!

I also sent out follow-up emails to the batch of first people that I mailed letters too. I got a donation from doing that so I'm pretty excited! YAY! haha. Next week I'll do more follow-up emails. This week, I'm going to send out letters to local storage unit companies and screen printing companies. I need a storage unit to store all of my stuff. Hopefully I can get that done soon!

Well sorry that this update is really quick!

I'll put more later when I have better news. :)

-Allyson

PS: Can any of you actually believe that it's already march!?!??!

today.

I got two HUMONGOUS packages in the mail today! One came to my school, I was really surprised to see it because I didn't know that I was going to be getting a donation from this company, very big surprise. The stuff was from gojane.com. It was all really great! :)

Then, my mom came to school and brought me a package from Stussy. I was so excited for this as well! I knew that this was coming, but it was great to see everything that came. All of the clothes were absolutely amazing and perfect. I'm sure that the girls chosen will love everything. :)

Make sure to check out these companies' websites!

stussy.com

gojane.com

Here's a picture with me and the boxes:

Please excuse my terrible appearance, I just got out of the shower. :P

TTYS!

-Allyson Ahlstrom

Well,

I got a package in the mail yesterday! My first donation that I held in my hands. It was so exciting! Tomorrow I'm expecting to receive a couple more packages in the mail. I'm very excited. :) I will post pictures of me with the packages I get tomorrow on here!

You know, these past couple of weeks have just been amazing. I have received such an amazing response. When I started this, I thought that I would be lucky if I had one donation and now so far, I have gotten so many. And even though I have gotten two rejections, both were very positive and supported me very much.

I've been working on some new components of my project that I think will be very exciting. One is that I'm making a t-shirt that will have all of the companies logo that donated on the back, and two that I'm going to start and try to involve students from my school a bit more. Hopefully, next week I can tell the details about the second part. I'm really excited about that!

One email that I got this weekend that really touched me was from a well-known brand and it was such a happy and supportive email. I was jumping up and down so happy and surprised.

This weekend I will hopefully be working on stuffing more envelopes. That's about it for now!

TTYS!

(: Allyson Ahlstrom :)

so.

I got home from track practice today. Then I checked the mail. I had a disappointing moment because I got a returned letter, so I guess I need to find an updated address. It's not that big a deal, but still kind of annoying.

Then I went in my bedroom and turned on my computer. Then I checked my email....and GUESS WHAT!?!??!??!?!?

I HAVE TWO MORE DONATIONS BOTH FROM MAJOR COMPANIES!!!! OMG!

I was seriously jumping up and down so excited.

Wow. These are stores that you see in the mall.

Anyway, other than that, an AWESOME shoe company has donated some shoes. They are really cute shoes, so I really think that you should check them out.

Here's a sampling of a bunch of their shoes:

Make sure to go to their website!

Blowfishshoes.com

and become their fan on facebook!

Become a Fan

That's all for now, BUT it's quite a lot.

TTYS

-Allyson

Envelopes

So, this morning I spent some time working on getting some letters ready to be mailed out. Everything was going great until I got to the part where I have to lick the envelopes. Let me say that after licking 31 of them, I was so glad to be done. I will never use lick envelopes again. Anyway, other than that *exciting* news, nothing else has really happened. I made new labels, they're really cute! Here's what they look like:

Sorry for blurring out my address, I'm very paranoid haha.

Anyway, I'm off to the post office to make sure that my letters get mailed!!!

Hopefully the next post will be a bit more exciting!

Lots of Love,

Allyson

GOOD NEWS!

I have four confirmed donations! OMG YES! I'm sooooo excited. I also went to the post office today and mailed out a ton of letters. This is going so great, even better than I could of imagined. I'm so excited. :) I still have a ton of letters to get out, so I'll be working on that this weekend. I think that I'm going to try and get all of my letters sent out by February 28th. Well I'll put up a long update this week.!

Lots of Love!

-Allyson

patience

I'm not good at that. At all. Today is a sunday and tomorrow is a holiday so I shouldn't expect to get anything but I can't help but keep checking my email every five minutes. I also have to wait until tuesday to mail all of my letters out. Well I'm off to the fabric store now to hopefully get this off of my mind! Ttyl! Hopefully my next post will come with some good news. :)
-Allyson

first post, not the first day

Today I spent over three hours stuffing envelopes. I have actually gotten quite quicker than I used to be, so I guess that's a good thing. I really wanted to go to the post office today to get out the massive stack of letters I have mailed today, but alas that didn't get to happen. I'm going to have to wait until Tuesday now, unfortunately. But, it's okay I have until August to get everything together.

I know that I am probably confusing every reader a ton by now, so I will explain a little. I want it to be mostly a surprise. Anyway, I am organizing a charity project benefitting teens. It's clothing that I'm getting donated. So, if you happen to have stumbled upon my little blog and have any connections at all into the clothing industry, please let me know. I don't care if it's your cousin's boyfriend's half-brother's step-dad's sister, if you have a way to get somebody a donation letter of mine, that would be absolutely amazing!

Yesterday, two things amazing happened. I have sent out a couple of email letters, and I got two responses. Judging from the little preview that I get in my email, I thought that both we're going to say that they loved my project idea, but couldn't donate. So, I chickened out of reading them myself and had my mom come in and read them. Once she read them, I found out I was wrong because both companies are VERY interested! YAY!!! I'm super excited about that. I will keep you guys posted.

Other than all of that, I don't really have anything to say. I will list some basic facts about me and my project though.

• I'm 14 years old and my name is Allyson
• I play soccer and run track
• This project was started on Jan. 17th 2010
• I intend to chronicle my journey of how this all goes, so please keep reading!

That's all for now!

Lots of Love!

-Allyson