A Holiday Message from Lynda
January 24, 2011

Dear Friends:

Thank you all so very much for the outstanding donations and support for our 17th and last year of Christmas-giving of gifts and necessities to under-served families in Ventura County.

With your help, Support for the Kids has widened its reach and increased the number of families served each year since our inception, in 1993. Just since 2008, we nearly doubled the number from 284 families to 496 families in 2009 & this year, despite this economy, we reached 655 families who desperately needed our help.

We heard so many heartfelt thank you’s and saw many tears of gratitude as our volunteers handed out essential items, including:

• Blankets
• Food
• Towels
• A choice of crock pot, toaster oven or blender
• Soap, shampoo, toothpaste, lotions, deoderant, conditioner, etc.
• Cleaning supplies, paper products
• Books, toys, stuffed animals, art kits
• Christmas candy and homemade cookies
• Gift cards to Wal-Mart or Target

We started preparing in July and I wish you all could have seen the hard work of our over 200 volunteers sorting, packing and lining up over 650 laundry baskets with the thousands of items that were donated by so many. Seventy-five local Girl Scout troops and members of National Charity League donated their time and effort to bake cookies, shop and prepare baskets for families. We were lucky to have a donated office space to do all this great work, so a heartfelt thank you to Peg & Gary Finefrock for their generous donation of this space. We received toys from Lost Hills Sheriff Station, Del Mano Hair Salon, 12 local Starbucks, several private toy-gathering parties, and from many individuals. Our great volunteers sorted all the toys by age & gender and bagged them for delivery to the centers.

Fortunately, we were able to use a truck donated by Randy and Lorelei Clark, of the LCS Company for fifteen days to deliver the baskets, toys, games, small appliances, stuffed animals, etc. to families at 17 different Family Resource Centers and four trailer parks in Oxnard, Ventura, Fillmore, Santa Paula . We handed new toys to 2,181 kids and provided $15,000 in gift cards to needy families.

There is no middleman: Support for the Kids Board members and volunteers personally handed out each and every item to the needy families and kids sourced by school social workers. Your help enabled the biggest Christmas family outreach ever by Support for the Kids.

As you know, Support for the Kids is finalizing its work in Ventura County. We received so much this year, we are still handing out to needy families and kids. Your support is immeasurable and made all the difference to all we touched. Our Holiday parties at Easter, Halloween and Christmas, the cultural trips to Pepperdine, New West Symphony, Discovery Center & Alliance for the Arts, our tutoring program Empowerment thru Education that reached thousands of foster kids thru the years, the Back to School party and handout, the school supplies, shoes, clothing, and gift cards were memorable, special and made all the difference to these kids and their families.

I am so proud and grateful to all of you for our achievements and the help we have given to so many over the years. My heartfelt wishes for a prosperous and successful new year go out to every one of you and your families. Thank you so very much.

It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich….
Henry Ward Beecher

With appreciation and gratitude,

Lynda Miller
President & Founder, SUPPORT FOR THE KIDS
www.supportforthekids.org

Girl Scout Troop #60034 Collects Backpacks and School Supplies

Local Girl Scout troop #60034 from Newbury Park spent their summer collecting recycle items to raise money to buy 20 backpacks and school supplies for 20 lucky underprivileged kids in Oxnard.

On Monday night, August 30th, the Girl Scouts held an ice cream party for these kids and their families.

The Girl Scouts spent the preceding weekend baking cupcakes, cookies and bars for all the kids and their families to enjoy, along with ice cream and lemonade. After the kids enjoyed all the yummy desserts, the backpacks were handed out to 12 girls and 8 boys.

The recipients started school the next day, so they were ready and excited for their first day of school. Troop #60034 leaders are: Kathleen Banaszkiewcz Sanna Fredriksson

THANK YOU for your continued support.

Pictured left to right: Julie Fisher, Angela Mitchell, Lynda Miller, Holly Cole

We have a strong relationship with Verizon. They have generously given us grants, did a book drive for us, and link us into their newest web site: THINKFINITY.COM as a great educational tool for the kids in our tutoring program.

Verizon has also graciously announced that they will be doing a school supply drive for us. We appreciate VERIZON!

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Backpack handouts
Our 15th annual Back to School party will take place in early September. We hand out back packs filled with new school supplies to hundreds of kids in need. If you can help in any way, just email us from the web, or contact any one of our Board Members for a pick up.



Fall Festival
Will be held in late October at Mel Cummings Ranch in Santa Paula. If you can donate anything, please email Lynda at: lynda@supportforthekids.org



Christmas
We will be helping needy families again this year. Last year we gave a small appliance, blankets, towels, food, a laundry basket filled with toiletries and cleaning supplies and a $50 gift card to Walmart to over 571 families. We hope we can reach 650 families this year, with your help.!

Support for the Kids works hard all year long to reach the foster and underprivileged kids and their families in Ventura County. We have NO paid staff and NO overhead, with 97 cents of every dollar raised being spent on the kids.

EASTER, 2010

3,150 kids had a funtastic time at 7 different egg hunts in Oxnard, Fillmore, Piru, Ventura and Santa Paula.

250 hard working local girl scouts helped us stuff the 31,000 brightly colored eggs filled with candy, money and gift certificates. If the egg contained a special paper, the kids were able to pick out a new toy. We also handed out freshly baked chocolate chip cookies made with love from National Charity League. The kids really look forward to our hunts every year. For most of them, this is the only hunt they will participate in.

"GET REAL" REAL ESTATE GROUP

A group of local real estate agents, loan and escrow officers meet monthly to network and plan ways they can give back to the community. Support for the Kids has been the lucky recipient of their generous efforts. They donated and collected over 42 new bikes, including helmets and locks for us to give away. At the end of the school year, the bikes were given away to lucky recipients, where the kids had to have perfect attendance, improved grades, were helpful in the classroom and had good attitudes. The bikes were handed out at 6 different Family Resource Centers.

Carnival in May for 350 kids

We held a Spring Carnival in late May for 350 kids at a site in Oxnard. We were lucky to get the help and hard work from Girl Scout troop #1034 working on their gold badge. There was pizza, smoothies, face painting a DJ, games, prizes and lot of fun for all.

Clothing Handouts

We handout out new and slightly used clothing to families in need almost every week at one of the 17 Family Resource Centers we serve. Clothing comes from individual donors, local clothing businesses and National Charity League thrift store. It's a perfect fit, we get clothing that one no longer needs and we pass it on to those in need. Everyone is happy.