Lifting the Family Back to School Event

Last Saturday I attended a Back to School event in a low-income section of Columbus.  When I arrived, there was a line of families winding around the building, waiting to have access to the racks of clothes they could riffle trough to find some new school clothes.  There was a group offering free physical and booster shots, and there were bouncy castles to play in!

The best part, of course, was this:

Hello Benefit Bank Mobile Unit!  I was at the event with one of our Benefit Bank host sites: East Columbus Developement Company.  They are a great site in the middle of a very underserved neighborhood, doing great work in the area, and they wanted to advertise the Benefit Bank service. So we tag-teamed with Russ and Erin in the van, as they could do Quick Checks and refer people to our table to make an appointment if they were indeed eligible. 

I also got to meet the woman in charge, the lady of the day, the powerhouse behind organizing events like this and mobilizing the community: Pastor Sue.

She doesn't have a building or office to work out of as I understand, she just pulls together whatever money and people she can get and feeds/clothes hundreds of people at different endeavors.  I've heard a couple people talk about her, so it was great to finally meet her and be at an event that she organized.  Hopefully I can continue to work with her in the future, considering if she does end up settling in a building she would be a great Benefit Bank site! I find site recruitment is infiltrating my mind.  I see most non-profits, churches, or any place that potentially has contact with low to moderate income people, as a Benefit Bank site. 

HealthPath Event

VISTAs across Ohio are working on a partnership with the Benefit Bank and HealthPath, which provided funding for outreach and events to introduce the presence of HealthPath in the region and to roll out our new campaign: "Do You Know Someone..."  We all know someone who has in some way been effected by the economic downturn; a friend, neighbo, or relative that has lost a job or needs assistance in some way.

One of these networking/information events, organized by another VISTA, was held this week in one of my counties.  Clark county is on the West edge of the Central Ohio region, and the county seat where the event was is Springfield (I drove past it every time I travelled back and forth to school, never thought I would have any personal investment there!)

Look at all these people!  Notice they all get a mug that is shaped like a little flower pot (Second Harvest Foodbanks = distributing produce =  Flower pot. Genious), as well as a laptop bag. There were a little over 40 people in attendance, including the mayor of Springfield, an assistant to a Senator, two county commissioners, a couple city commissioners, the director of Job and Family Services, the regional coordinator of the Second Harvest Foodbank in Clark, Champaign and Logan counties, and representatives from social service organizations that are integral in assisting the citizens of Clark county every day.

We even got free lunch.  (This was before the Food Stamp Challenge, don't give me those accusing looks.  No cheaters here!)

The representative from HealthPath awarded Keith, the regional director of Second Harvest Foodbanks, a check for his Foodbank to help feed Clark County.  

I was on the opposite side of the room, ready to sign people up for training webinars if they wanted to become a site, and taking pictures from my phone.  So we are all going to imagine how exctiing and wonderful that check presentation was, in light of absent artistic photo capturing skills.

It was so great to have a lot of the people I have been trying to contact all together in one place.  My projects are all picking up speed, the next couple weeks in August are going to be a whirlwind of site visits and meetings.  Especially since I will be moving into my NEW APARTMENT in a couple weeks.  woohoo!