Ventura County Star: Moving Company Collecting Items for Haiti

Moving company collecting items for Haiti
By Anne Kallas
Posted January 21, 2010 at 10:47 p.m.

Brenda Kerth and her dog, Cutter, pulled up to the Camarillo warehouse where Aaron Steed and his band of Meathead Movers were collecting toiletries Thursday to be sent to victims of the Haiti earthquake.

“A friend of mine was sick and she asked me to go to the store to get her some (sinus medication). I turned around and on the same aisle they were selling toothbrushes at 10 for $10. It was like God sent me down that aisle,” Kerth said as she dropped off the toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap and plastic bags.

Steed, chief executive officer and president of Meathead Movers in Camarillo, said the items will be sent to Haiti through Heart to Heart International, a humanitarian group based in Kansas. Using a list that included customers of Meathead Movers, business contacts, family and friends, Steed sent e-mails and created a Facebook page to get the word out about the drive to collect toiletries and bandages for the victims. He said the drive will continue today.

Heart to Heart is putting items such as washcloths, small bottles of shampoo, soap and combs into 1-gallon freezer bags. The bags are then packaged 10 to a cardboard box. Meathead Movers also is donating the boxes.

Steed said it’s just one in a long line of humanitarian projects the company has undertaken. “In the past we helped bring 200,000 pounds of donated goods to various disaster areas,” he said, citing Hurricane Katrina and the San Diego fires of 2003 and 2007.

Meathead Movers employee Doug Trimborn of Thousand Oaks came in Thursday to help on his day off. “I read in the news that they buried more than 50,000 people. It’s hard to see such a poverty-stricken country go through something like this,” Trimborn said.

In addition to dropping off toiletries, people can contribute money to help defray shipping costs, Steed said. Meathead Movers is covering the upfront costs of shipping the boxes, first to Kansas City and then to Haiti. It amounts to almost $25 per box.

“Meathead Movers will pick up the tab and make up the difference in shipping costs if we don’t collect enough,” Steed said. “And if we collect more than we need, all the surplus will go to Heart to Heart.”

For more information on Meathead Movers’ drive, call 544-6328. For details on care packages for Haiti, visit http://www.hearttoheart.org.