ATLANTA – Boxes filled to the brim with items ranging from travel-sized tubes of toothpaste to mini bottles of shampoo were packaged up and loaded on a truck recently, bound for Mercy Care.

Each year, employees and members of the Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital community collect the basic hygiene necessities, as well as raise money, to help support Mercy Care’s outreach initiatives in the metro area to provide services to those in need.

The total value of the items as well as cash donations exceeded $6,000 this year. Mercy Care is a nonprofit organization providing primary medical care for the homeless and underserved. It was founded after teams of Saint Joseph’s doctors, nurses and staff began providing medical care on the streets, in homeless shelters and in soup kitchens.

Emory Saint Joseph's employees collected and sorted the items, which are then distributed by Mercy Care throughout the year to homeless shelters and members of the community.

Emory Saint Joseph's contribution will provide nearly 3,000 kits for those in need, and employees throughout Emory Healthcare also joined Emory Saint Joseph's campaign by donating a variety of toiletry items.

The Mercy Care collection started at Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital in 1985, when employees began collecting toiletry items in observance of Mercy Day, as a way of extending the Mercy mission of the hospital by serving the poor and vulnerable at Mercy Care.

Mercy Day is held annually in recognition of Catherine McAuley, the founder of the Sisters of Mercy. Saint Joseph's Hospital was in turn founded in 1880 by four Sisters of Mercy who traveled from Savannah, Georgia, to Atlanta to establish the city's first hospital.