Natalia has always shown a love for the homeless and a desire to help those in need. She has been been raising money and collecting items for the homeless since she was 3 & became more intentional when she was 7. In 2nd grade, Natalia spearheaded a fundraising drive amongst her friends to collect money for the homeless, and they raised a couple hundred dollars. Then in 2019, instead of asking for birthday gifts, Natalia asked for donations that would go to the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission and the Charis House. At the time she was also a Girl Scout, and when she was selling boxes of cookies, she would ask customers if they wanted to buy an extra box to donate to the homeless.

Natalia ended up dropping off bags of donations and hundreds of boxes of cookies for those in need. Her work has only continued to grow from there. "I wanted to start doing more for the homeless so a few years ago I started brainstorming a name for all of it and we came up with R.E.A.C.H. That's when it all started and we started making (the) bracelets." R.E.A.C.H stands for Reach Everyone Always with a Caring Heart. You can follow "REACH the Homeless" on Facebook.

Natalia and her mom, Amy, designed the colorful bracelets that Natalia has sold online, at school, church and craft fairs. She has far surpassed her goal of raising $1,000 dollars - in fact, she has nearly tripled that amount raising $4,466 to date. "Some of it we're going to use to get things that homeless people need right now like hats gloves and scarves, but most we're going to donate to the Rescue Mission and Charis House," said Natalia.

Natalia hopes to one day start her own non-profit dedicated to helping the homeless. Her dream is to build mini houses for the homeless population. She has been featured on WANE 15 and on The Pat Miller Progam on WOWO, 1190 AM & 92.3 FM.

You can see the Positively Fort Wayne video at:

https://www.wane.com/news/local-news/r-e-a-c-h-the-homeless-8th-graders-giving-heart-is-positively-f Iort-wayne/

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Listen to the interview with Pat Miller at:

https://www.wowo.com/pat-miller-founder-of-r-e-a-c-h-natalia-kleinrichert/

Special thanks to: