Sac City, IA

      The Community Resource Center committee has had several meetings and the members have come up with a number of great ideas.     

     The core objectives of the Community Resource Center are to make sure community members are aware of the many resources available to help residents in need, and to help them overcome any barriers to accessing those resources.  To effectively meet that goal, the committee is focusing on ensuring that the center will be self-sufficient and in an area easily accessed.  The committee is in the process of exploring ideas for fundraising and is considering requesting donations from various businesses and organizations in exchange for printing their logos on the center’s brochure.  This could conceivably generate enough money to take care of the monthly expenses.    

     There have been several ideas where the center could be located and the committee is currently in the process of researching.    

     The members are very excited about their progress and are working diligently to get the center into operation as soon as possible. 

Sherrill

     The committee has plans to match financial mentors with families burdened financially.  Families who volunteer will be paired with a mentor (a trained volunteer) who will work with them over a period of 6 months to develop basic budgeting skills, and to manage through whatever problems and issues arise during that time.  As an incentive, families who are involved will be eligible for a limited amount of special assistance, using Horizons funds, if special needs arise.  The ultimate goal of the mentoring program is to build skills which will be a new way of life for some families and this program is based on trying to make this transition as painless as possible.  Because of the intensity of involvement, the committee’s goal is to mentor 3-5 families in the first year.     

      The committee is partnering with New Opportunities (local Community Action Agency) to identify interested families and to ensure that any special financial assistance provided does not duplicate something that is already available through another agency. 

Sherrill

      In May Horizons was invited to participate in a Resource Fair.  This was an event where a number of agencies, dedicated to help lower income families and persons in need, were all available in one location to meet and talk with people.      

     There was a nice turn-out of agencies and people and it gave everyone an opportunity to talk about their needs and see that there were possibly organizations that could be of help to them.     Our Horizons booth had a number of people stop and talk to us about our different projects.  We had brochures and our County Resource booklets available, and people staffing the booth that had information about the five Horizons projects:   senior center, resource center, mentoring program, scholarship program, and volunteer program.    

     It was great seeing everyone trying to work together to accomplish the same goal – alleviating poverty.  People working together and sharing ideas is so much more productive than trying to go it alone. 

Sherrill   

     In August of 2007 our first project was introduced to the community.  It was called the Sac County Resource Directory and contained sixteen different categories.  Example:  Financial & Income Assistance, Housing Assistance, Food Resources, Transportation, Older Adults, Family Safety and others.  Within each category there were listed all the agencies and resouces available in the county along with an explanation of each agency and their telephone numbers and addresses.

     This directory was professionally printed and consists of 23 pages.  These 800 copies were printed with $300 Horizons funds, along with an additional grant of $500 from Community Partnerships for Protecting Children and a generous discount from the Sac Sun, which made it possible to be distributed county-wide.

     This project was completed and available for distribution at the final visioning meeting and is currently available through local agencies, churches and other means.

Sherrill/Amy