Thank you to those who made it a priority to nominate a local organization to be a recipient of our 2019-20 Share the Plate collections.  Your concern and commitment to the organization you nominated was inspiring!  We received nine excellent nominations, all very worthy organizations doing important social justice work.  The SRJ Coordinating Team met and carefully reviewed each nomination, considering its relationship to our social justice priorities, its impact in our community, and perceived need for financial support.  It was challenging to select only four recipients out of the nine nominations.  We are pleased to announce the following organizations and the schedule for Share the Plate donations.

 

October-December: La Plata Family Centers Coalition

LPFCC serves the critical needs of families in rural communities in Southwest Colorado, including La Plata and Archuleta counties.  Multiple approaches are used to not only help families in the midst of crises and challenges, but also to support families in becoming more self-reliant and able to provide a safe, stable and nurturing home environment.  More than 65% of the families served live in poverty, with an income of less than $25,000 per year.  Demographically, 23% of families served are Latinx, 12% Native American, and 10% multi-racial.

 

January-March:  Grief Center of Southwest Colorado

The Grief Center of Southwest Colorado is dedicated to meeting the needs of bereaved members of the community regardless of cultural and/or religious beliefs, manner of death, relationship to the deceased, and ability to pay.  Examples of the Center's services include therapy and support for all ages, grief groups and education for schools and community, suicide prevention and survivors of suicide support, on-call intervention response for schools and organizations (such as the school shooting in Aztec), and memorial service assistance.

 

April-June: 4 Corners Office for Resource Efficiency (4CORE)

Climate change is the most critical and time sensitive challenge of our time.  Justice acknowledges that families who can least afford the effects of a warming planet are those most impacted by climate change. 4CORE promotes resource conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy through education and programs that strengthen the local economy and foster a healthy, sustainable environment for everyone.  It particularly prioritizes collaborating with local utilities, governments, and citizen efforts to enable low income families to upgrade to more energy-efficient and cost-saving practices, such as solar and weatherization, at an affordable price. 

 

July-September: Compañeros - Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center

Compañeros serves immigrants in the rural Southwest through community organizing, education outreach, and bilingual direct assistance, striving to make our community a more inclusive and welcoming place where people from all different backgrounds can thrive and flourish.  They help immigrants with understanding their basic rights, referrals for legal services, paperwork, and navigating the complex immigration or justice system. They are the only organization in our region with a primary focus on serving immigrants.

 

Thank you not only to those who nominated an organization as a Share the Plate fund recipient, but also to all the members and friends who make it a priority to donate on our STP Sundays.  Your generosity makes STP an important source of needed funds for organizations to do their work.  On average, three months of STP donations result in just over $2000 going to a selected organization, a significant contribution.

 

Needham Elementary - Continued Partnership

Our partnership with Needham Elementary includes a mutual agreement to help each other with facility related needs.  They make their parking lot available to us on Sundays and we make our parking lot and buildings available in an emergency, should they need to evacuate students and staff from their premises.  Last year, in an effort to go beyond this basic partnership, we asked if we could help with other needs that are important to teaching, learning and student success.  

 

Needham was profoundly grateful for our outreach to them, and from September to June we collected about $2800.  These funds provided for needs not covered by their budget.  They included noise canceling headphones, composition notebooks, water bottles, a rocking chair, and school play expenses, all benefiting students in multiple grades.  In addition, we helped struggling low income families by paying off accumulated lunch program debts and provided a source of funds to meet varied student needs such as clothing, shoes and participation fees.  If you heard principal Jenny McKenna when she spoke at one of our Sunday services, you know the impact these funds had and how much they were appreciated.

 

This year we reached out to new principal, Laurie Rossbeck, to ask what would be most helpful to Needham. Laurie described a dynamic special staff team called the Social Emotional Learning team who are dedicated to doing whatever it takes to provide an environment where every student belongs and every student can learn.  They teach all students about brain science, mindfulness, peaceful conflict resolution, friendship skills, school readiness and restorative justice practices, to name a few.  They work with individual students and small groups to provide additional help to students who need more support.  They also help families with basic needs such as clothing, food/snacks, and scholarships for field trip costs.  The team has an unlimited view of possible actions to take to support student well-being and success, but a very limited budget.  Their hope is that our contributions will allow them to better accomplish their mission, especially to help with families' basic needs and to purchase materials to use with students.