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Greetings!
Summer
is finally here and the kids are on summer
vacation. We have filled this newsletter issue
with good news for and about kids!
Open
Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless has always
had a special concern for children. Children make
up more than a third of Minnesota's homeless
population, and more than half of those who
receive assistance from food shelves are children.
At Open Your Heart, we believe that all children
in Minnesota should have a safe place to call
home, nourishing food to eat and the essentials
they need to succeed in school. This month
we would like to highlight two initiatives that
address this goal.
First,
we are excited to announce that Hunger Solutions
Minnesota, a longtime grant partner of Open Your
Heart, has launched a $1 million initiative to
feed hungry kids this summer! Open Your
Heart is proud to support this initiative by
providing the funds needed so that Hunger
Solutions Minnesota could qualify for federal
funding for the program. The new Child
Nutrition Grant Program will allow Minnesota food
shelves to create or expand programs that help
children who are part of a low-income household to
access nutritious food all summer. This
funding will make an enormous difference to the
thousands of children who don't get enough to eat
during summer vacation.
Of
course, as soon as the Fourth of
July is over, the stores will start their "Back to
School" sales. It's hard to think about the next
school year when the last one has barely ended,
but we too are looking ahead to fall. This marks
the 15th year of the Open Your Heart Education
Fund, which we created in 1996 to help homeless
children and youth in Minnesota get all of the
essentials they need to succeed in school. In the
past 15 years, we have given out nearly $1.5
million in grants through this fund and helped
over 48,000 students! In this newsletter issue you
can learn about two agencies whose youngest
residents have benefited from this unique
program.
Thanks
to our donors who designated gifts to the Open
Your Heart Education Fund. We especially want to
thank ADC Foundation and the Cub Community Cares
Foundation for their generous support. Because of
this outstanding support we were able to increase
our Education Fund by 15 percent for the upcoming
school year, helping many more children!
May
you enjoy a wonderful summer with your
family!
Arna
Yetter
Executive
Director
"There
can be no keener revelation of a society's
soul than the way it treats its children." --
Nelson Mandela
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Agency
Spotlight:
Amherst H. Wilder Foundation, St.
Paul, MN
Open
Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless has given
three Education Grants totaling $7,128 to the
Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. Wilder helps more
than 4,000 at-risk students each year overcome
barriers to school success.
The
Wilder Foundation is a health and human services
organization that provides service, research and
community development addressing the needs of the
most vulnerable people of St. Paul. It impacts the
lives of more than 20,000 individuals each year.
Open Your Heart's grants will help three
Wilder programs: Jackson Street Village, Project
Quest and the ROOF Project.
Click
Wilder Foundation for
more information.
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Agency
Spotlight:
Churches
United in Ministry, Duluth, MN
Churches
United in Ministry (CHUM) has received a $2,452
Education Grant from Open Your Heart to the Hungry
and Homeless.
CHUM
is a human services agency sponsored and governed
by 50 Duluth congregations. It provides basic
needs for homeless and marginalized members of the
community while working to effect changes that
will eliminate the need for its services. The CHUM
Center provides emergency shelter, housing
advocacy, a nurse clinic, and other aide. The
Distributive Services division solicits, receives,
inventories and distributes food and household
items donated to CHUM and Duluth's Emergency Food
Shelf from individuals, churches and
businesses.
Open
Your Heart is pleased to be able to help CHUM
achieve its goals through a 2010-2011 Education
Grant.
For
more information, visit Churches United in
Ministry.
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Education
Grants Empower Students
Open
Your Heart approved $127,665 in Education Grants
for the 2010-2011 school year. Click here to see a list of the 58
agencies who benefited from these grants.
Some quotes from our Education Grant
survey show the importance of this money to the
recipients. "Children need to feel good about
themselves as they meet their classmates on the
first day of school," said a respondent from the
Theresa Living Center in Minneapolis. "The OYH
Education Fund contributes to helping these
children feel a part of their class and not stand
out because they have to admit they could not get
certain items needed."
"Sometimes I feel
like Santa Claus to these kids," added an
anonymous respondent. "They are so proud, and it
raises their self esteem when they can go shopping
with staff and get their needs met. Thank you."
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Open
Your Heart Helps Hunger Solutions Feed Hungry
Kids
Hunger
Solutions Minnesota and Senator Al Franken announced a
$1 million grant opportunity that will allow Minnesota
food shelves to create new nutrition programs focusing
on children living at or below 200% of the poverty
level. The program will reach an estimated 400,000
children across the state.
Hunger
Solutions leveraged a grant from Open Your Heart to be
eligible for federal emergency funding from the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program,
making the $1 million grant opportunity possible. This
new Emergency Fund, established by the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act of 2009, helps states serve more
families seeking assistance during the economic
downturn.
"We are delighted that Hunger
Solutions could gain additional resources to fight
hunger this summer as a result of our grant," said Yoji
Shimizu, President of the Board of Open Your Heart to
the Hungry and Homeless. "This initiative will greatly
help school-aged children get nutritious meals daily
throughout the summer." One in three school-aged
Minnesotans relies on free or reduced-price school food
for two-thirds of their calories.
For
more about Hunger Solutions and the summer initiative,
visit
Hunger Solutions.
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Students
Donate to Open Your Heart to the Hungry
and
Homeless
Open
Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless received two
special donations this spring from some very young
donors.
Seth,
who lives in northwestern Minnesota, just celebrated his
seventh birthday. Most seven-year-olds have a list a
mile long of toys and games they want for their
birthday. But Seth decided he would rather help out kids
who have greater needs. So instead of asking for
presents from his friends, he decided to ask them to
bring a donation to Open Your Heart to the Hungry and
Homeless.
Seth's
mom said his party was a big hit, and Seth raised $167
for Open Your Heart! "That was a great birthday," Seth
said. "I had a ton of fun, spent time with family and
friends and collected money for kids and people who
don't have anything. That makes me feel
good."
A
second donation came from students of Bet
Shalom Congregation, Minnetonka. Each year,
students in the Religious School contribute to a
class "tzedakah" (justice) fund, a way in which each
student can, in his or her own way, have a say in making
the world a better
place.
This
year, members of one of the seventh grade classes
decided to donate their accumulated contributions of
$108 to Open Your Heart.
We
thank our youngest donors for their thoughtful
contributions. | |
