Hello friends, I hope you can join me in raising money for the Safe Children Coalition, which serves at risk children and families in Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties.  Melanie and I have been advocates for and have donated to foster care and related programs since our days living in South Florida.  We were introduced to SCC and their programs a few years ago and cannot stress enough the impact that they have on our local community.   The stories can be heartbreaking, but unless you are aware of these programs you probably won't see it pop up in your news feed.   When most people think of Foster Care, I don't think they realize the full scope of the various programs that are included outside of placement and adoption services.  Not only that, but the sheer scope of the amount of individuals, nearly 8000 just in our community, that are impacted by the program is staggering.  Some quick facts below from this past year just in our local community:

• 7905 Children and Families were provided with critical, life- saving services such as Foster Care and Adoption, Prevention and Diversion, and other social services to help at risk children and families have a better life
• 1678 Foster Children accepted in licensed foster care homes and out-of-home care placement
• 2723 Emergency Safe Shelter Bed Nights for kids ages 10-17 experiencing severe family conflict, abandonment, have run away or are awaiting higher level residential mental health placement in the community.  While in shelter they receive counseling, therapy, transportation to and from school, medical appointments and other services to stabilize their situation
• 706 homeless and unaccompanied teens served through the Schoolhouse Link program and a partnership with the Sarasota County School Board to help kids stay in school
• 5022 Children served in prevention and diversion programs to help families stay together in their homes with free individualized assessments, in school counseling and wrap-around services to prevent children from entering the child welfare system
• 4664 visits through the HIPPY program (Home Instruction for Parents of Pre-School Youngsters) in which 212 preschoolers were delivered early childhood education with a trained educator to prepare lower income students for their first day of kindergarten
• 175 First Generation Children participated in the Achievers Program attending academic focused and career workshops and providing community service hours.  32 of which qualified for senior year and college renewal scholarships to continue their education
• 174 adoptions from infants to teenagers placed with their forever families
• 16,800 hours logged by the prevention and diversion team doing emergency/crisis response and youth prevention services

As you can see from the statistics above, the need for these services in our community are to put it bluntly....large in scope.   I have recently taken a volunteer committee position with the board to get more involved with the organization locally.  These kids in our community are the future and the more that we can support them and intervene in crisis situations, the better our community will be.  We have to be committed in this community to serving those in crisis situations.  As it is the holidays (and incidentally the Safe Children Coalition provides gifts for nearly 1700 kids within their programs) Melanie and I thought it would be a great idea to do a fundraiser and put our money where our mouth is.  We have set a goal to raise $7000 for the SCC in the month of December and we will be personally matching every donation dollar for dollar up to $3500.  Please join us in supporting this worthwhile and very needed cause.

Many Thanks,

Lee and Mel