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Volunteers Needed
Special event volunteers - provide hospitality and catering support for a beach barbecue fundraiser in Wisconsin. Help us raise money and enjoy the gorgeous beach! Saturday, August 27. Contact Lisa at lt@cfthinc.org if you want more details. |
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Bring a Friend to Breakfast at Hilda's Place Homeless Shelter
Save the Dates:
9/15/11
Chronic Homelessness and Project 20
11/17/11
Homelessness prevention
2/16/12
Plans to End Homelessness
5/17/12
Family & Child Homelessness
7:30am at 1458 Chicago Ave.
Breakfast is free but seating is limited. RSVP to Catherine at 847-707-9795
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Most Needed Items
CTA day or 7 day passes
Target gift cards for work and school uniform requirements
Flash drives
Portfolio folders
*** If you have unused Dominicks or Jewel giftcards we can also use those to purchase CTA passes. |
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THANK YOU!
To all the individuals and groups who supported Connections for the Homeless with in-kind donations.
Concerned community groups and businesses who gave in-kind items in June included:
Baird & Warner
Bethel AME Missionary Society
Boocoo Cultural Center
Campus Kitchens
Convent of the Holy Spirit
Doves of Unity Junior Youth Group
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pleasant Valley United Methodist Church
Reba Place Church
Sigma Gamma Rho, Delta Xi Sigma chapter
St. Catherine Laboure Church
Starbucks, Dempster Ave.
Temple Beth Israel
Tiny Dog Bakery
Unitarian Church of Evanston
Wilmette Men's Club |
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August
Volunteer Orientations
If you'd like to learn more about Connections for the Homeless or if you are interested in volunteering in one of our programs please plan to attend an orientation. We will tour our 1458 Chicago Ave. location, home to Hilda's Place Transitional Shelter and Entry Point drop-in program and talk about the agencies mission and current volunteer needs. Orientations in August wil be:
Thursday, 8/4, 1:30-2:30pm OR
Tuesday, 8/23, noon-1pm.
Please RSVP to lt@cfthinc.org or 847-424-0945x17. |
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In-kind donations can be delivered to 1458 Chicago Ave. in Evanston (the basement entrance at the northwest corner of the
Lake Street Church).
Drop off on weekdays between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 pm and any evening between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. or call for an appointment, 847-424-0945 x17.
Please ring the bell and have a staff member receive the donation.
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Greetings! Well, it's been an interesting month following the budget debates in Washington. We still don't know the full impact to our programs but we have been pursuing some new initiatives immediately, to increase our community (non-governmental) support. First off, we have a a great volunteer team that is helping our development department increase corporate donations and event fundraising. Secondly, we are planning a series of breakfasts to engage the community in a discussion about homelessness on the North Shore. We do not know what our leaders will decide about funding priorities but we do know that the community will need to be more integral partners with us. We also know that the need is only increasing. (A busy morning for our homeless drop - in program used to be 40 people. Last week we served between 60-74 each morning.) We want as many individuals, churches and businesses as possible to understand the need in our area and our mission. Ultimately, financially supporting our work benefits the whole community. Homelessness devastates individual lives and bankrupts the community. Let's work together to end it! Please plan to enter the conversation this year by attending one of our breakfasts or by working with your employer to support Connections for the Homeless. Peace to you,
Lisa Todd
Community Relations Manager
Connections is ending homelessness by preventing people from losing their homes, housing the homeless and providing supoprt to help people at risk achieve long-term self-sufficiency. |
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Fourth of July Parade -
There's No Place Like Home
 | | The whole Connections family gathers for the parade- staff, clients, volunteers and board members. |
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Our beautiful float, hosted by Baird & Warner.
The Fourth of July parade was a perfect day for Connections to spread the word about our programs. Thanks to Baird & Warner for hosting us and creating a shared design for the float, we were able to distribute literature to the crowd and increase our visibility in the community! |
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Job Readiness Training - Update
- Eric Dougal, Employment Coordinator
We had a very solid group of 9 JRT participants. The group was engaged and showed good energy with our guest speakers and JRT leaders, Eric Dougal and Brittany Blackmon of Connections and Pamela McKenzie of the McGaw Y. The training included modules on job-seeking strategies, on-line/paper applications, resumes, interviewing (with plenty of mock-interviews), STAR stories (Situation Task Action Result -- where a participant uses an actual event to demonstrate their ability in overcoming adversity and achieving success) and post-interview/application follow-up strategies.
Guest speakers, Rick Siwecki, District HR Manager of Sodexo Northwestern and Amy Morton, Evanston Restauranteur, both presented to the class about their interviewing and hiring processes and then engaged in a Q and A with the students. They also conducted mock interviews with the entire class offering feedback. Each Friday at the McGaw Y, the JRT graduates meet in a job club for 6 weeks -- each graduate gets customized job leads and we go around the table to discuss each person's job-seeking activity and interviews during the past week.
Since the group has graduated, there have been 8 individual interviews and 1 of our participants just received the first job offer to start on Monday, Aug. 1st! There will be a flurry of more interviews over the next week and we're hopeful that 2-3 more job offers will be extended soon to our JRT graduates.
We continually need single fare with transfer cards, 1 day fun passes and 7 day Pace/CTA passes to help our current, past and future graduates get to job interviews, drug screens and to their new jobs until their first paychecks. Target gift cards buy flash-drives, required work uniforms and shoes as well as that one nice shirt, pair of pants or skirt to complete an interview outfit. Your donations directed to the Employment Program are always appreciated and go directly to help these clients who are improving their lives by getting and keeping a job. Donations can be sent to either 2010 Dewey Ave, Evanston 60201 or via our website at www.cfthinc.org . We will continually run our Job Readiness Training Workshops every 8-10 weeks at the McGaw Y, so your continuing support is very important to us. |
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Building our Corporate Support
- Chris Gregory, volunteer
We continue to hear how the road to financial recovery remains slow. Many people of all walks of life continue to worry about losing their job or home. Today, we are faced with a dilemna: help is more important than ever but is becoming harder and harder to find.
Many of you already share in the fight to end homelessness.
In order to increase our community support, Connections for the Homeless is currently working to draw attention to employer provided matching contributions. There are a couple of things that you can do to support this initiative.
1. If not already included, please request that your employer add Connections for the Homeless to their matching donors list. Many organizations are all too happy to match employee contributions as a way to give back to the community and to share the philanthropic causes of their employees. Please see the list below providing names of businesses already providing matching contributions. Let us know how we can add your business or employer to the list.
2. Connections is also actively seeking supporters to sponsor agency events. You can help by spreading the word within any organization or business where you are the owner, an employee or a patron. Please contact Lisa Todd, lt@cfthinc.org or Sue Loellbach, sl@cfthinc.org with any questions or suggestions you may have regarding sponsorship opportunities. Together with the help of committed organizations and businesses we can promote a stronger community by helping end homelessness.
Thank you.
Here's a list of organizations that have already joined the battle by providing matching contributions:
Abbott
Allstate
Altria Group
Arch Insurance Group
Bank of America
BP
Chevron
Chicago Mercantile Exchange
Citicorp
CNA
Discover Financial Services
E Funds Corporation
Ebay
Fannie Mae
Gap
General Reinsurance
Harris Bank
Houghton Mifflin
Intuit
McDonald's
McDougal Littell
Microsoft
Mindscape Adornments
Motorola
Northern Trust
Nuveen
PCS Administration
Takeda Pharmaceuticals |
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