The supply chain crisis is not only affecting businesses and consumers, but it’s also hitting nonprofits hard.
A local nonprofit founder Hunter Beaton said he’s had to move up his donation deadline for his event happening next year.
“We want to be able to serve as many youth as we have before,” Beaton said.
That’s a tough goal this year for the Boerne native who founded Day 1 Bags, offering free duffle bags to foster youth. For his annual Adopt-a-Senior program, they give those bags full of gifts to graduating foster teens.
This year, their list includes 610 foster teens across Texas, 110 of which are in the San Antonio/Bexar County region.
“This is honestly some of the only gifts they get upon graduation besides their diploma,” Beaton said.
However, with the COVID-19 pandemic and labor issues holding up supplies all over the world, getting those bags packed full of gifts may be difficult.
”Starting at the beginning of this year, everything’s just gotten really jammed up,” said Jimmy Chittim, CEO of Flying Circle Gear.
Chittim’s soft luggage company has donated more than 10,000 bags to Beaton’s charity over the past few years.
”Our big customer is the Army and the Air Force,” Chittim said.
That means he must have quality materials, some of which come from overseas.
”The lack of transport boats between here and overseas, it’s been very hectic. An amazing amount of planning still isn’t enough to get stuff to be where it needs to be at the right time,” he said.
The supply chain’s effect is easy to see in Chittim’s warehouse. The space is filled with empty shelves when usually the shelves are fully packed with boxes even overflowing into the aisles.
If the problem persists and the shortage becomes too massive, the first clients he would have to let go of would be nonprofits like Day 1 Bags.
The same issues are arising with the rest of the items Beaton puts inside the bags.
”Vital documents bag where they can carry all their important documents such as birth certificates and social security cards. We have a toiletry bag that goes in as well. We also have a bath towel set which is new to this year,” Beaton said.
That’s why Beaton has moved up the normal February deadline for monetary donations to November 30.
”So we want to order them and give them plenty of time,” Beaton said.
If enough money comes in and he can pre-order items, there’s a chance he’ll be able to continue making graduation dreams come true for foster youth across Texas. Anyone who wants to donate still has a couple of weeks and can head to the Day 1 Bags website.