Dear Katie,

I hope you’re staying cool out there! We are doing our best to stay cool here at MCUM although we have officially launched into our new school year! We celebrated about 25 NEW children enrolled in Compass Early Learning Center this month. Parents and students were invited to check out their new classrooms, meet their teachers, and enjoy some refreshments at our Open House event at the conclusion of our first-ever week-long staff training. After the first week of school nerves were gone, we celebrated parents with a breakfast and coffee networking event, hosting more than 20 parents for an opportunity to build community and get to know one another. Additionally, we have been able to enroll two new children into our scholarship program, whereby a portion of their weekly tuition is waived and they can elect to work with our Your Path team to maximize their savings to build assets and opportunities to strengthen their families. We are excited for this wonderful year ahead of us!

The Self-Sufficiency Center has also been working hard helping our neighbors meet their basic needs. We are seeing a 5% increase in pantry visitors so far this year over last year, and we are glad to be able to offer support and resources to families who trust us to help them. With the surge in visitors, our pantry requires more than 14,000 items every single month in order to keep everyone fed. As we launch into the fall season, with the holidays trailing behind, I hope you might consider working with your network to commit to frequent donations of non-perishable food items to help us keep our pantry full for local families. Our biggest needs are: Ramen Noodles, Pasta/Potato Sides, Helper Meals, and Canned Fruit. These are items we cannot usually get highly discounted from our partner food suppliers but are our clients’ most-requested items. If you/your organization can ‘pledge’ to give a certain number of items in any of those categories, please let us know. We are already making plans for next year and for every item we don’t have to worry about, we can invest energy into cultivating readiness to move these pantry visitors from a state of crisis into stability.

I sure appreciate all you do for us! Looking forward to another great month ahead!

Katie Broadfoot, MPA

Executive Director

Monroe County United Ministries

[email protected]

812-339-3429 ext.11