SELF staff Jeffrey Diver, Kim Weigel, John Post and board member Butch Hubble accepted a Best Practices Award for its 2010 Hamilton Group Workcamps Home Repair Project. SELF accepted a Best Practices Award on behalf of the Butler County Bridges Out of Poverty Coalition for its Getting Ahead workshops.

On February 3, The Ohio State University's John Glenn School of Public Affairs and the Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies presented 11 Best Practice Awards to seven community action agencies in Ohio.

SELF received a Best Practice Award for its 2010 Hamilton Group Workcamps Home Repair Project in which it coordinated 100 national volunteers through the Group Workcamps Foundation and more than 280 local volunteers to repair 37 homes in Hamilton's Second and Fourth Wards.  The homeowners of these residences were elderly, disabled or families with small children.  A coalition of 17 other agencies helped SELF plan and implement this repair project, recruiting professional laborers and youth and religious groups to repair homes, as well as raising more than $28,000 for supplies.

The Butler County Bridges Out of Poverty Coalition, in which SELF serves as the fiscal agent, also won a Best Practice Award for Getting Ahead, a county-wide program to address the roots of poverty and help low-income participants better understand the value of resources (physical, mental and relational) and the hidden rules of class.

The awards were developed to honor innovative and effective Community Action Agency programs that measurably meet the needs of clients, families and communities by helping low-income people become more self-sufficient.  A panel of judges selected by the Glenn School evaluated each nomination independently and assigned points based on their assessment of each nomination.  

SELF has received 16 Best Practices Awards since it was founded in 1995 from national, state and local organizations.     

The late Butler County Commissioner, founder of SELF, was the first to receive SELF's Janet Clemmons Community Service Award in 1997.

Do you know an outstanding individual who has dedicated his or her free time to serving others in Butler County?  Someone who truly goes above and beyond the call of volunteer duties?  Supports to Encourage Low-income Families (SELF) is seeking nominations from the community for its 2011 Janet Clemmons Community Service Award to be presented at its 15^th Annual Awards Dinner & Auction.  The event is on Saturday, April 9, 2011 at the Courtyard by Marriott (1 Riverside Plaza) in Hamilton.  The start time is to be determined. 

Nominations should include a completed nomination form and a one-page letter describing the nominated individual and detailing why the person meets the spirit of the award.  The nomination forms can be downloaded from   or picked up at the front desk of any SELF location (Hamilton, Middletown, West Chester or Oxford).  To have a form mailed to you, please contact Kim Weigel at (513) 820-5009.

Nominations may be mailed to P.O. Box 1322, Hamilton, Ohio 45012, faxed to (513) 785-3692, or emailed to  Kim Weigel.  The submission deadline is February 25, 2011 by 5 p.m. 

 

SELF hosted a Group Workcamps site writing training for its Site ID committee.

SELF is co-sponsoring a second home repair project this summer!  This time, the 2011 Group Workcamps Home Repair Project will take place in Middletown July 10- 16.   

A coalition, comprised of organization representatives, city officials and local volunteers, began meeting just after the New Year to begin planning for some 400 national volunteers that will come to Middletown through the Group Workcamps Foundation.  

There are many ways to get involved with this project!  For more information, please visit our website.