Shoes from the Heart for Children

Whether you’re young or young at heart, there’s nothing like a new pair of sneakers to put a smile on your face! And that’s just what Shoes from the Heart recently did for a group of preschoolers. Shoes from the Heart delivered more than 40 pairs of new shoes to children at Youth In Need’s Early Learning Center – Meramec and its childcare partner Hope House. Based in Missouri, Shoes from the Heart provides new tennis shoes to children in need throughout the country. With a focus on Head Start programs, schools and foster care, Shoes from the Heart volunteers deliver shoes and ensure a proper fit for each child.

Longtime Volunteer Honored at COY

Last month’s Celebration of Youth included a surprise honor for longtime volunteer Gene San Filippo. Gene received the first-ever Quiet Hero award for his 30 years of volunteer service to Celebration of Youth and Youth In Need.

Always helping behind the scenes, Gene was famous for going door to door to St. Charles businesses to ask for gift certificates for the Celebration of Youth auction. Gene kept meticulous records and always gave the business owners a chance to increase their donation the following year. For many of those years, Gene’s volunteer partner was his wife Connie. And since her passing, Gene has volunteered at Celebration of Youth’s Wine Pull with daughter Lisa and son-in-law Joe. While the award is called “Quiet Hero,” it’s just in name, because those who know Gene know he’s anything but. Friendly to a fault, Gene always has a smile on his face and likely a good joke to tell. Congratulations, Gene!

From left: Anita Viehmann, Youth In Need Board member and former Annual Fund Director, Gene San Filippo and Gene’s daughter Lisa Hale.

Youth In Need Welcomes New Board Members

Youth In Need has elected three new members to its Board of Directors. Welcome!

Ashley Bloomer is Senior Manager at Grant Thornton, LLP.

David Noble is St. Louis Market President & Director – Community Economic Development at Midland States Bank.

Rusty Putzler is Vice President & COO at Connectria.

The post NewsFeed | 4.13.22 appeared first on Youth In Need.

Connectria Donates $100,000 to Youth In Need

If there can be such a thing as perfect timing in a pandemic, this was it.

Connectria, in partnership with Bregal Sagemount, has made a $100,000 grant to Youth In Need as part of the Bregal Helps Initiative, a fund created to alleviate human crisis in cities where the company’s subsidiaries are located. Youth In Need will use the grant in its programs that help youth who are at-risk or experiencing homelessness.

Posing significant challenges across the board, the pandemic not only spurred an increased need for Youth In Need’s services, but it also created a sense of uncertainty about future funding.

“Our services just can’t be turned off because there’s a pandemic,” said Pat Holterman-Hommes, Youth In Need’s President and CEO. “During this time, we’ve seen a greater need for what we do, with some truly incredible staff keeping our services going during really challenging times. And in the beginning, we worried about what the pandemic would mean for the funding of those programs. Then came Connectria’s truly wonderful gift, something that will be key to helping us maintain our services to the children and youth who need us most.”

A Youth In Need Children’s Partner since 2014, Connectria vetted several nonprofit organizations in the St. Louis area before choosing to champion Youth In Need through the grant process. Rusty Putzler, Connectria’s Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, wrote the grant in conjunction with Youth In Need.

The grant will fund Youth In Need’s runaway and homeless youth programs, which are a continuum of services to help at-risk youth find safety and then success in school, work and life. Youth In Need engages thousands of at-risk youth and successfully helps more than 400 youth transition out of homelessness each year. Programs include emergency youth shelter, transitional youth housing, homeless street outreach and crisis response.

Harris Elementary Students Spearhead Exceptional Donation Drive

For a young group of friends, making a difference in their community begins where all great ideas happen: Recess! Victoria Ermeling, Keegan Foust, Arah Turner and Ava Haynes, fourth graders at Harris Elementary School in St. Charles, began talking about helping the homeless during a recess break in December. With the help of their counselor Susan Ballard, the students found Youth In Need and really liked the idea of helping other children in their community.

Over the course of the next month, Victoria, Keegan, Arah and Ava gave up their recesses to make posters and a video promoting their donation drive. They made their own morning announcements at school and arrived early and stayed late to sort and count the items they collected for Youth In Need. Initially, the students hoped to collect 900 items for Youth In Need, but when they delivered their donations earlier this month, they proudly reported they had collected 4,200 items of non-perishable food items and hygiene products!

From left: Keegan Foust, Victoria Ermeling and Arah Turner with just a portion of the 4,200 non-perishable food items and hygiene products they collected with classmate Ava Haynes for Youth In Need.

The post NewsFeed | 02.16.21 appeared first on Youth In Need.