Liz Duggan of Warwick had a number in mind and it had nothing to do with Friday the 13th and yet it had an awful lot to do with the date which often is equated with being scary or bad luck.

The number Duggan was focused on was 2,500. That was the number of travel hygiene kits she targeted on completing on Friday — a laborious task of filling sandwich-sized plastic bags with small tubes of skin cream, toothpaste, disposable razors, soap and other items.

Friday, however, was a lucky day for Duggan and the nonprofit she founded 11 years ago in her garage, Amenity Aid. Early Friday morning more than 40 Rhode Island Blue Cross & Blue Shield employees arrived outside the Amenity Aid office on Plan Way. The group was one of 13 battalions of BCBSRI employees reporting to 13 Rhode Island nonprofits. They were ready for deployment to Duggan’s delight.

It’s no coincidence this was all happening on Friday the 13th.

This was lucky number 13, said Martha L. Wofford, who was wearing a T-shirt brazenly declaring the day as she stopped in to cheer on BCBSRI employees. Wofford, president and CEO of the company, and Duggan looked on as the battalion assembled for a group photo.

This happens to be the 13th anniversary of Blue Cross Rhode Island.

Duggan was beaming.

Breathlessly, she told a reporter of the goal to complete 2,500 hygiene travel kits by the day’s end. The team blew by that number within a couple hours and now she was hopeful of assembling 4,000 kits, maybe even more, to be distributed to displaced people. This year she expects Amenity will disburse 22,000 kits. Last year Amenity provided 10,600 kits and a lot more. In 2023, 114,932 Rhode Islanders received hygiene essentials and distributed 128,124 full-size hygiene products.

That’s a long way from the handfuls of the bars of soap, tooth brushes and other hygiene products Duggan collected from her hotel visits while working a good paying corporate job. She gave the toiletries to area shelters, learning not only were they greatly needed but government programs don’t provide them and social agencies lacked resources to buy them. She decided to do something about it, finding support from her husband who urged her to follow her newfound passion to end hygiene insecurity regardless of how it impacted the family budget.

“We exist solely to provide desperately needed hygiene products in both full and travel sizes to vulnerable populations throughout Rhode Island, including individuals who are unemployed, underemployed, unhoused, veterans, immigrants and refugees, LGBTQIA+ youth, students, and victims of violence, human trafficking, and abuse, via a network of partner agencies. Amenity Aid supplies products to partner social service agencies that serve these populations; those agencies, in turn, provide products directly to individuals in need,” reads the Amenity Aid annual report.

As Wofford observed during the past 13 years of Blue Across Rhode Island, employees have wielded rakes, paint brushes, hammers and saws as they have tackled projects from building playgrounds to refurbishing and brightening child day care centers and shelters. It is just what Krystal Furlong, an auditor for Blue Cross, likes about the day. She didn’t stop filling hygiene kits as the rest of the crew took a lunch break. She loves getting out in the community, learning what nonprofit agencies do and most of all helping.

She and fellow employees are links in the chain of nonprofits serving Rhode Islanders.

Amenity Aid partner agencies include Amos House, House of Hope CDC, Sojourner House and Operation Stand Down Rhode Island, among others.

In addition to the time and effort of volunteers, BCBSRI awards each partner organization $5,000 in grant funding. Since the launch of Blue across Rhode Island in 2012, $810,000 in BCBSRI funding has been distributed to 78 organizations across the state for more than 140 projects. BCBSRI associates have logged more than 37,000 volunteer hours. It is estimated these projects have had an impact on the lives of more than 184,000 Rhode Islanders.