As a 92-year-old business based in Detroit, Mich., Evans Distribution Systems is always taking advantage of opportunities to give back to the community. Recently, Evans was approached by COTS Detroit, a community organization in need of overflow warehousing near their Detroit headquarters.
COTS is a non-profit organization that assists displaced and low-income families in housing, economic, health and education. The organization’s mission is to “create opportunities for families to collaborate, thrive, and succeed in building strong and stable households, neighborhoods, and communities.”
COTS helps Detroit families by providing low-income housing, shelters, food and supply pantries, career development training and more. The group funds its mission through volunteers, donations, grants and fundraising. Last year, COTS grew in importance during the pandemic. Families were strained farther than before and faced new challenges related to a lack of resources, health and employment.
One of COTS most generous donors, Amazon, created a critical need for storage space after donating roughly 500 boxes of household goods. These goods range from toiletries, cleaning products, bedding, technology, games, books, dry food, and furniture. Large donations of this type requires space for volunteers to assemble goods in care packages, load them on trucks and distribute them to families.
Before Evans stepped in, the organization was utilizing public storage for the Amazon donations. Not only were they not easily accessible, the goods were not organized or inventoried, and it was difficult to assemble them for distribution.
As part of the partnership, Evans donated 2,000 square feet of space at the Romulus facility to COTS. With this space, COTS benefits by:
- Reducing operational overhead related to storage fees.
- Increasing efficiency and volunteer performance.
- Tracking inventory and distributing goods more effectively.
- Increasing storage capacity and inventory.
- Expanding resources to impact more Detroit families.
In a few short months, COTS has experienced many benefits from relocating to Evans’ facility. They have plenty of room to organize their packages and get them to those in need. Evans and COTS are planning a joint volunteer day in the future. Stay tuned for more.