|
Mentoring Update:
We have been amazed by the response of community members interested in becoming mentors. In the past 3 months we have trained 11 new mentors! The struggle to find enough men to mentor the number of boys who enroll in the program continues to be a challenge, but unlike many mentoring programs we have been focusing our outreach efforts towards raising awareness among families and youth to ensure they have access to mentors and to find matches we have eagerly waiting to be matched with a young person. As a new organization the task of outreach is never ending and as always we continue to accept new youth enrollments and mentor applications so, that we can make good, quality mentoring matches that last!
|
|
Reflecting on 2016!
2016 has been our first full year of operations and programming. It has been a great year:
- We raised $56,239 in 2016 which supported:
- 50+ outreach events
- 10 youth events
- 4 fundraising events
- 16 new mentors
- 13 new youth enrollments
- 10 new mentoring matches
|
|
September:
In September we were granted $25,000 by the Otto Bremer Trust. $15,000 was granted to support general program costs and the remaining $10,000 were matching funds which had to be received by local donors before being matched by OBT. We were also approved in September to work with an intern from the Center for Small Towns at the University of Minnesota in Morris for the duration of the academic year.
|
|
October:
On October 7th we had our 2nd Annual Fall Family Festival. Despite cold, windy weather we had a great demonstration of support from the following groups who helped us plan youth activities: Morris Area FFA, Swan Lake 4-H Club, Riverview, LLC, Stevens County Historical Museum, Bremer Bank, Morris Kiwanis, Bank of the West, and the Donnelly Royalty.
|
|
November:
Parade of Lights- We participated in the Parade of Lights for the first time on November 17th this year!
Give to the Max Day- Also, in November we held a fundraising campaign around Give to the Max Day, the largest online giving day in Minnesota. We asked our supporters to consider "Why Mentoring?" and we shared those responses throughout the month.
|
|
You can view all of the photos received through this project on our Facebook page "RUSC Kinship Mentoring".
We were overwhelmed by the generosity of donors in the past few months and have surpassed our Give to the Max Day goals. We received $10,399 in response to our GIve to the Max Day campaign, reaching our goal to secure the $10,000 in matching funds from the Otto Bremer Trust. In addition, to our Give to the Max Day funds we have received a total of $23,626 in community donations since September 1, 2016. We are so grateful to that our donors have given us the opportunity to continue to carry out our mission in 2017 by donating.
|
|
December:
In December we focused on family and youth outreach. We have received 7 new mentor applications this month. With a short youth waiting list we focused our efforts on meeting with youth and family service agencies to help us connect with families in our community.
Santa Day- We also made an appearance at Santa Day in Morris on December 10th to distribute treat bags and information about enrolling.
Holiday Stroll-On December 3rd we attended the Craft Fair at the Morris Legion which was part of the Chamber's Holiday Stroll. We brought along our holiday promotion display which has been on display at various locations over the past two months. We've had a great time sharing about our Community Patio Project with old and new friends! Our goal is to place a large order of custom engraved bricks later this winter in time to begin construction at Pomme De Terre Park in the Spring.
Thank you to all of those who have participated in this project!
|
|
|
|
|
|
