With the start of a new year, we have new goals, new challenges, and new opportunities.  My father always said, however, that the best way to know where you're going is to take a look back at where you have been.  So before we set out too far down the road of 2015, let's take a look at our path during 2014.  

The Crisis Center answered over 160,000 requests for help through 2-1-1, TransCare, Corbett Trauma Center, Sexual Assault Services, Family Stabilization, and the Training & Outreach department. This includes over 350 children who received trauma counseling and over 300 sexual assault survivors who received advocacy and empowerment services.  Without the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, each caller, each child, each survivor would have been left without support and without needed services.  Because of your relentless support of the Crisis Center not one caller, not one child, nor any survivor needed to face crisis alone.  

2014 saw the launch of a new veterans hotline staffed by fellow veterans.  Connecting these resources, we began to ensure our treasured veterans have a place to get the support they need.  The Crisis Center also launched an anti-human trafficking educational campaign designed to alert teens to the deceptive and manipulative tactics traffickers use to prey upon young people.  

With your help, these services and many more are poised to grow stronger in 2015.  In the coming year, we will welcome a new CEO.  Our CEO selection committee comprised of staff, volunteers, and talent management professionals is working hard to select the next great leader of the Crisis Center.   Meanwhile, we will grow our programs, extend our reach, and find new, amazing ways to support our community.  All of this to make sure that in 2015, the Crisis Center continues to provide vital support to those facing any type of crisis.  

We are also excited that in 2015, we will launch a mental health peer support line staffed by people who have received mental health services in the past. Connecting those in need to those of who have benefited from mental health support programs is an exciting concept in the evolution of the Crisis Center.  

These are only some of our plans for 2015.  We know that members of our community will face crisis in 2015.  We also know that the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay exists to make sure that no one faces crisis alone.  To do that, we need you.  We need our volunteers, our donors, our staff to join together to make 2015 our best year yet.   On behalf of those served by the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, thanks for what you're doing to provide help, hope and healing to people when they need it most!