West District Community Service Project
Fall 2009 West District Community Service Project
Children's Council of Watuga County
The Children's Council is a child care resource and referral service. They provide professional development and technical assistance to Watauga County early learning professionals and offer a lending library that provides resources for professionals and parents. They support the "Raising a Reader" and "Parents As Teachers" programs. The Children's Council is a United Way agency and the local administrator for Smart Start. Most of these donations will support the families enrolled in Parents As Teacher (PAT). PAT serves families considered to be at high risk for abuse and neglect based on a variety of factors including age of mom, level of social support available to mom (such as a partner and/or biological family), economic status, first pregnancy, etc. The home visitors assist the families in the development of their children as well as providing a network for services in the community. This is a nationally certified program. This level of support and intervention has documented effectiveness in the prevention of abuse and neglect. Several boxes of items were collected and Susanne indicated that the Children’s Council would be very appreciative of the items.
Fall 08 West District Community Service Project
The Reconciliation House, Yancey County
It was decided by the group at our spring 2008 meeting that we would ask the county which would be hosting the district meeting to choose an organization and ask that organization what they needed such as clothing, food, cash, etc. We would ask members attending that meeting to bring items that were suggested.
As a community service project, our host county, Yancey, secretaries chose The Reconciliation House. The Reconciliation House is a store where folks donate money, clothing, food, and items that can be resold at a very low price for needy families. They have kind of like a flea market inside where the items are donated. Anyone can shop there if they choose, and the money goes toward Reconciliation House expenses. The food is distributed, a box at a time for a needy family. The money is used for their fuel fund whereby they can assist folks with purchasing fuel in the winter. A family can get $100.00 worth of fuel every 12 months, but Sam's will not deliver less than 100 gallons. Last year they had to give $300.00 worth of fuel at a time in order to be able to deliver the 100 gallons of fuel. Therefore, a family can only get fuel assistance once every three years because of the cost of fuel now. The Reconciliation House has guidelines that have to be met before they give out any assistance. Their clients are interviewed to see if they qualify. They are given vouchers for clothing and can come back to get clothing with the vouchers. The food is given out one box at a time up to 5 times per year per family."
There were many items of food and some cash was given by the West District members.
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