Mark your calendar-- November 6th!!!!

Deb Murphy has spearheaded an exciting planning process for a major site event in November. On Friday November 6th, in cooperation with the Parkersburg Art Center, we will be having a Christmas stocking auction, as a fund raiser, and use the opportunity to "kick off" the Little Red Stocking campaign, a little "early" to gain more community awareness and support. Stay tuned for more information, as committees are being established to handle all the varied planning for this fun and ambitious major site event.

Foster Care news

Tuesday is our foster family appreciation picnic at Jackson Park in Vienna; at 5:30 pm. Many folks have been pitching in to help get this ready; thanks especially to Sandy and Kindra for the efforts to get donations in the community. This is a first for us, so we'll see how it goes!!!! We daily cannot convey enough, how much we appreciate the foster parents in our agency, and their courageous work with the children.
This week we will be welcoming two new staff in the foster care program. On Tuesday, a foster care case worker, and a family case aide will both be starting their orientation. Stay tuned for an update on their progress!!!

our after school program

We finished up another exciting and successful year of providing after school care at McKinley school Friday. Everybody felt relief, nostalgia, anticipation of summer activities, and all the other related emotions. We are very well connected now with efforts around the state for quality after school care, and advocacy efforts, primarily through the WV Statewide Afterschool Network. Jane Hange is a wealth of resources and information. She has connected after school programs with their county's and the state's Title I program contacts, to explore new uses of Title I funding, and stimulus money for new programming that fits the eligible student population for Title I. We, again, appreciate our already established good relationship with Wood County schools, and particularly Title I programming, with our Truancy Diversion program, and work with McKinley school. Additionally we maintain our contract for providing homeless student liaison work, through the McKinney-Vento act with the schools.

Business on Board with Childcare!

Deb will be attending the kick off meeting with KIDS COUNT for this year's campaign to further support and gain public awareness about the need for quality childcare in the state. We are once again, the local contact and grantee for our area for this campaign. A first activity will be contacting the local Chamber of Commerce, to get a commitment to send out a letter to the Chamber mailing list seeking support for the campaign. This is an opportune time for us, since we have many exciting things to talk to the Chamber of Commerce about locally, with all the services and impact we have with area children and families. There is a new director, after George Kellenberger retired last year after a long and distinguished stint as director of our local Chamber. Look for more news soon!

.... On any given day........

One of the exciting developments in recent years here at our bustling busy site is the connections we have made with the community. One example of this, is that on any given we might have between 3-7 people contributing valuable work for the agency, who are paid for through other sources, in various work programs. We have three great contributors through the Senior Community Service Program, Kay, Sandy, and Charles. Kay and Sandy help out immeasurably with clerical work in the various programs. Charles has been doing "handy man and janitorial type work." We have two (currently) and a steady amount over the past few years, of young people in the Youth Advantage (workforce investment act programming in the area) who have a paid work experience with us, as part of their involvement in Youth Advantage. Travis Smith (a former employee in our truancy diversion program) has been our primary contact in this program, and seeks young people with an interest in child care, or related fields, who can help out in our after school program. These young people have a contract for (usually) a 90 paid work experience, through Youth Advantage, and then can use this experience to build their resume, and gain valuable references and contacts. And finally, I have mentioned before, we have two VISTA's (Volunteers in Service to America) who contribute to our work, as a year long assignment through WV Promise. Patty and Kindra are both coming toward the end of their year of service; Patty will be staying on for another year, while Kindra goes on to enroll at WVU-P in the fall.
So, as you can see, Children's Home Society, through our connections in the community benefit from these wonderful work experience programs, and thus further our mission and serve that many more children and families through the efforts of these fine folks.

Bob Dylan Tribute raises funds for the Gustke Shelter

Saturday night's Bob Dylan Tribute, part of our year long Americana Music Tribute Series was a great fun time, and raised some money for the work of the Gustke Shelter. With some recent vinyl record sales, which I attributed to the shelter, the total raised was $687. The music was sensational with many musicians contributing their time to this cause. They had obviously worked up sets of music with a special effort to put on an entertaining night of music. The door prize winners all seemed to be excited and the few interactive contests we held were great fun. I am still working on an idea for a summer time show, but if nothing else, we are scheduled for our annual John Prine Birthday tribute on October 10th at 6 Pence Pub.

Friday Night's Movie night

Jim and Lisa report 16 youth attending the movie night the other night, including 7 new and different ones! Look for updates on future events, particularly with us swinging into summer vacation from school! This is part of their effort to provide positive youth activities in the neighborhood, and to "at risk" youth for the issues leading to runaway and homelessness. It comes under their work with the Basic Center Program of our Runaway and Homeless youth grant.