Annual donations for the homeless

ELIZABETHTOWN – The 12th annual Roger’s Wish project will take place October 3 thru November 7 at Bladen County Public Library in Elizabethtown. Donations of new or gently used blankets and sleeping bags will be accepted for the needy and homeless . Winter wear items such as hoodies , jackets, gloves and winter hats will also be accepted.

The distribution day will occur on November 7 at the library during regular business hours. The handouts will be directed by project organizers Mariea Bryant and Jeffrey Bryan .

The beloved mission is carried each year in memory of it’s founder Roger LT Grunder of Elizabethtown. Roger started the mission just three weeks prior to losing his life in an auto accident in August 2013 . Since it’s inception the mission has distributed over 1600 donated items to help others keep a bit warmer during the winter months.

“According to his sister, Roger Grunder would give the shirt off his back to a total stranger if they needed it,” The Bladen Journal reported by Michael Futch of the Bladen Journal in 2021. “

Equally so, she added, he would give his last bite of food to a stranger if they said they were hungry.

Mariea Bryant, Grunder’s sister, said her younger sibling would be touched to know that his dream lives on — the dream of helping the destitute and homeless in the Elizabethtown area.

“He was very humble. He didn’t like a lot of notoriety,” she recalled. “He gave more, I guess, than what he got.”

The distribution of blankets and sleeping bags for Roger’s Wish community donations was held Friday in the art gallery of the Bladen County Public Library. More than 100 pieces went out to the community, ranging from sleeping bags and blankets to socks, gloves and other items to keep warm.

“People need to know it helps,” said Bryant, 57, and a substitute teacher in the Bladen County Schools district. “We are so grateful for what we get. We know what it’s like to be cold.”

The community project helps the homeless in memory of Roger Lee Theodore Grunder.

Grunder, who was raised with three older sisters, was a fixture in Elizabethtown and homeless by choice for the final 19 years of his life. It was in the summer of 2013 that he talked of a blanket and sleeping bag drive to benefit the area homeless and needy.

Grunder died in a car crash on Aug. 30 of that year, just as the Bladen Journal initiated a partnership with him on the outreach program.

“We’ve got sleeping bags, blankets. We’ve got some toboggans, gloves, socks. And there werre some leggings,” Bryant said of the Roger’s Wish stash on hand. “One of the girls we know has to go out at night. It was cold. We just gave them to her. Some of the needy and so forth, they’re embarrassed, I believe, to come to the library or wherever to get blankets.”

This year, Candi Barber volunteered her time to help with the cause. The distribution got underway at 8:30 a.m.; not long after lunchtime, there was little left.

“We go to the library and anyone who walks in and wants a blanket, gets a blanket,” Bryant said. “We do not question you if you are needy or homeless. We know the hurt and sometimes the embarrassment of being in need.”

In past years, Roger’s Wish has provided an opportunity for church groups, youth groups, school groups, company groups, etc., to participate in a month-long challenge to collect blankets and sleeping bags.

“We do have homeless in Elizabethtown,” Bryant said. “We do have several needy individuals and families throughout Bladen County.”

She described her brother as a free spirit, an eternal jokester who loved to travel.

“We went through the hardships of alcohol and drug addictions with him. He got over it,” she said. “He battled those demons. He loved my children to death. He would come and have a meal with us. Shower, do the laundry. Spend time with the children and take off. He would go to his squat, as he called it. I know of four squats he would utilize.”

It only seems fitting that this good Samaritan, this gentle soul — who was born to a military family — was a native of El Centro, California, the winter station for the famed Blue Angels demonstration squadron. With his caring ways, he was a bit of an angel himself.

“He was homeless by choice,” his sister said of Grunder. ”He told me, ‘If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.’”

Stay tuned as current updates will be available closer to the actual event.

Bladen County Library is located at 111 North Cypress Street and can be reached at 910-862-6990.