eConnection
Community Newsletter | August 2020
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Back-to-School:
Right Around the Corner!
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It’s not too late to support Rainbow Days’ Back-to-School Drive with your time, financial gift or in-kind donation. Your support will help more than 1,200 North Texas children and youth head back to school confident and ready for a fresh start!
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Volunteer Your Time – Keep reading for all the details on how you can volunteer over these next few weeks to help stuff or deliver backpacks.
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Give – Sponsor a backpack filled with school supplies for just $60.
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Donate Supplies – We still have a few remaining items on our Amazon Wish List. Please help us fill up our backpacks for kids in need!
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Save the Date:
North Texas Giving Day 2020
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It's that time of year! In just a few weeks, Rainbow Days will be participating in North Texas Giving Day 2020, a regionwide day of online philanthropy and giving fueled entirely by generous individual supporters like YOU!
Please save the date for Thursday, Sept. 17, from 6 a.m. to midnight. We hope you will consider making a financial gift in support of Rainbow Days during this time. Your support helps us continue serving kids and meeting many critical needs experienced by the children, youth, families and communities we serve.
Can't wait until Sept. 17? In the meantime, you can #HelpKidsRise by creating a FUNdraising page on behalf of Rainbow Days to help us raise funds on North Texas Giving Day and spread the word among your own friends and networks. To get started, simply visit our North Texas Giving Day page and click "FUNDRAISE."
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Current Volunteer Opportunities |
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Calling all volunteers! Rainbow Days is currently recruiting volunteers to help us with a variety of projects that directly benefit the children, youth and families we serve. Current opportunities include:
Back-to-School: We need volunteers to help us in our office NEXT WEEK to stuff backpacks and organize uniforms. We also need volunteers during the first week of September to help deliver these backpacks to local shelters. Sign up here if you would like to get involved!
Project Hope Food Program: Each month, Rainbow Days delivers food and household staples to families living at local motels. We are grateful for the help of generous volunteers each month who help us sort, prepare and make the deliveries to the families. We are currently recruiting volunteers for our September, October, November and December deliveries. Spots are limited, so reserve yours here today!
Please contact Volunteer & Events Manager Sunni Roaten with any questions about volunteering.
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Family Connection Spotlight:
Learning with Mad Science of DFW
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This July at Family Connection's Outdoor Adventure Camp for homeless children, we were thrilled to expand campers' educational horizons through interactive STEM classes with our friends at Mad Science of Dallas & Fort Worth.
Each day of camp, instructors from Mad Science taught live, engaging virtual lessons that incorporated key geology and physics topics and knowledge in a fun, kid-friendly setting. Mad Science's classes at Outdoor Adventure Camp included "Optical Illusions," "Volcanoes," "Energy Burst" and more. As the kids learned new scientific concepts, they were able to apply and explore what they had learned through hands-on, interactive science experiments led by Rainbow Days’ camp group leaders.
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Community Connection Spotlight:
Positive Mentors
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One of the most beneficial and impactful aspects of Rainbow Days' work is our caring, trained staff who serve as positive adult role models and mentors for the children and youth we serve. At Rainbow Days, kids experience positivity, consistency and encouragement through the support of our staff. For children and youth experiencing adversity and familial challenges, sometimes just knowing that someone in their life cares about them and truly wants them to succeed can make all the difference.
A perfect example of a positive adult role model is Maria from Rainbow Days' Community Connection team, whose mentorship of students at Thomas Jefferson High School was recently illustrated through a special video that premiered this summer at our 2020 Pot of Gold Virtual Event. If you have not yet seen this moving piece, you can view it here.
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Rainbow Days Training Spotlight:
Virtual Summer Symposium
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Throughout the month of July, the Rainbow Days Training team was thrilled to host its third annual Summer Symposium – virtually!
Through eight unique virtual workshops, Rainbow Days Training engaged, connected with and educated 507 youth-serving professionals who work in the prevention, social-emotional learning and nonprofit fields. Workshop topics included:
- “Practical Science: The Compassionate Schools & Communities Movements”
- “How to Have a Positive Influence on Your Students That Lasts for Years”
- “Microaggression: Bridging the Gap Between Naivety & Awareness”
- “Prevention Tips for a Lifetime”
- …and more!
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