Our Mission: To encourage and enrich the lives of families and individuals living in rural poverty by establishing meaningful relationships, promoting education, and offering material aid.

Dear Friends,

School is back in full swing and the Winter Holidays are rapidly approaching! The Box Project has been very busy over the past few months. We are excited to welcome a new team member, launch our NEW LOGO and for our recent partnership with the University of Mississippi Computer Science Department. We can't wait to share our new website later this fall, and we are eager to push out our new marketing campaign to increase our visibility in 2024.

We are ramping up for the Winter Holiday season and are actively seeking family and winter holiday sponsors for those on our waitlist. If you or someone you know is interested in assisting a family in need, please go to our website to sign-up or donate today!

Other ways to support the Box Project: Please share your stories/experiences with the Box Project here, and follow us on Facebook and Instagram.

We are so thankful for YOU!!

In service,

Kara Dulaney, Director

The Box Project

would like to WELCOME

Ameliea Dulaney

to our team!

Ameliea is our new marketing consultant that joined our team in August 2023. Ameliea currently lives in Charlotte, NC; where she served as a member of Teach For America and runs her marketing and communications business. She is a graduate of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi where she earned her B.A. in English with an emphasis in Editing, Writing, and Publishing and minored in Sociology. Recently, Ameliea has been working closely with our University of Mississippi computer science student teams who are currently rebuilding the Box Project website to make it more engaging and user friendly.

“One thing I love about the Box Project is that it allows people who would never cross paths in day-to-day life to build meaningful and empathetic connections. In many cases, sponsors and recipients become life-long best friends. This is a relationship of reciprocity. As one of my favorite indigenous authors, Robin Wall Kimmerer, defines it, reciprocity is the balance of the ‘give and take,’ where “order and stability emerge out of chaos” and two opposing forces “begin to become a whole” (Braiding Sweetgrass, 152). Since I joined the team, I have conducted interviews, developed new and relevant content for the Box Project website and delivered boxes to some recipients! Even in a short amount of time, I have witnessed the positive impact of the Box Project on families in the Mississippi Delta. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for the Box Project, and I am so grateful to be a part of it!”

Ameliea Dulaney, along with Box Project volunteer Logan Britton, out delivering "Back to School" boxes to families in Jonestown, MS.

UM COMPUTER SCIENCE CLASS REBUILDS BOX PROJECT WEBSITE 

Over the last couple of months, Kara Dulaney (director of the Box Project), along with Lily Rodenhiser (intern), and Ameliea Dulaney(Marketing) have been working with two (2) student lead teams from Dr. Timothy Holston’s advanced computer science class at the University of Mississippi to renovate the current Box Project website so that it is more modern, visually impactful, and cell phone friendly.

The Box Project staff have had three meetings with the students so far and we will be reviewing their final website proposals in just a few short weeks! We hope to have an online recipient application, meaningful box project family stories, and easy to find resources for families. "We can’t wait to see what they have created, and how they have taken the website of the Box Project to the next level." -Kara Dulaney

It is especially meaningful to have Dr. Holston and his class working on the new website. He, himself was a Box Project recipient and has a very impactful story of his own to share. In addition to this, he and his students while a professor at MS Valley State built the first Box Project website more than 10 years ago.

"Dr. Tim Holston speaks about his Box Project experience at the Community Foundation of NWMS Delta Conversation with Archie Manning”

A Trip to Jonestown:

in the mid 1980s and today

by Ameliea R. Dulaney

If you were to visit Jonestown, Mississippi in the mid 1980s, it would not look much different than it does today. Unfortunately, this reality highlights a major problem, not only in Jonestown, but in other small, rural towns along the Mississippi Delta region that has persisted for decades despite strides in the US international economic standing. Historically, the MS Delta has been recognized as one of the poorest area in the United States, and it continues to hold this ‘title’ (for lack of a better word) today in 2023, 40 years later.

The Box Project (established in 1962 by Virginia Naeve and spearheaded by activists Claire Collins Harvey of Jackson, MS and Coretta Scott King) represents one active step towards a long-term solution in the Mississippi Delta. Although most of the original Box Project sponsor families were located in Northern states, it was not uncommon for them to visit the families they were partnered with in the MS Delta. In fact, it was very much encouraged! This allowed for them not only to learn about their family’s conditions first-hand but to develop a personal relationship as well, which has been crucial to the success of the Box Project both then and now. Diane, a sponsor in the 1980s, stayed with her recipient family in Jonestown for 8 days. She observes that “in most cases the friendship and knowing someone cares about them means even more than the boxes.” She continues, “The main lesson was taught to me by a 20-year Box Project veteran I met at the picnic. She sought me out to tell me: 'It wasn't the things they sent so much as knowing that somebody cared.’”

Though there are still miles and miles of progress to be made, the first ladies who began this movement set the stage for actionable change. Recently, I took a trip to Jonestown, Mississippi to visit the Johnson recipient family. Ms. Johnson is the new guardian of her two grandchildren after a tragedy and is also elderly and physically disabled. She notes that her physical disability and age has added to the daily stresses of living in rural poverty. Yet, her Box Project sponsor is who she is especially grateful for in these hard times. She proclaims that they “treat each other like family,” and adds, “they show us love and we show them love right back.” Ms. Johnson mentions how her sponsor has been crucial to her newfound confidence in taking care of herself and her two grandchildren: “She’s been someone I can talk to and rely on” […] “and it just goes to show how you can be of a different race and still get along.” It has been a little over a year since the two families were paired by the Box Project, and they intend to continue their relationship for years to come.

If your recipient was displaced due to the April 2023 MS Tornadoes, please reach out to director@boxproject.org to find out which resources are available to them.

Sponsors, please be diligent in communicating with your Box Project Family during this current financial climate. This is a time they may need extra guidance and encouragement as well as help with basic household items to help curve the pinch from increased cost of food and transportation.

As you know we strongly discourage recipients requesting financial support. However, if you are able and feel that your family's household could benefit from assistance with transportation or food costs, please send a gift card instead of cash or Venmo (cash app, etc). Be sure to communicate that the offering of support is limited and not to be expected or requested by the recipient family.

If you have questions about resources please visit https://boxproject.org/covid-19-resources/

• Friend Raise- Share about your experience with your Box Project Family, and encourage others to consider sponsoring a family or donating to help sustain the Box Project's mission.
• Stimulus Checks- For those who do not need the CARES Act stimulus check, consider donating to the Box Project.
• Retirement and IRA Required Minimum Distribution-Consider a roll-over to the Box Project Current Giving Fund or Endowment for tax advantages.
• Planned Giving-As you review your long-range estate and financial plans, ask you financial advisor the benefits of including the Box Project in these plans.
• Non Traditional Gifts -You may receive tax savings by donating stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other assets. Please check with your financial advisors for tax savings you may receive by donating to the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi designated for The Box Project.

To learn more about Box Project opportunities visit https://boxproject.org/what-you-can-do/

The Box Project is a program of the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi.

www.boxproject.org | Call 800.268.9928 | Email director@boxproject.org

Kara Dulaney, MS Director