Many Roles, One Community

Senior Family Support Specialist Doug Holm recently attended a training called “Reframing Childhood Adversity” sponsored by Alliance for Strong Families and Communities. Overall, the session emphasized that child adversity must be framed as a public issue, a preventable problem, and a solvable problem.  As the training progressed, Doug recalled memories of his career that reminded him that The Patch and our community of supporters strongly believe those three statements.

 

Helping families is a public issue.  Every year hundreds of people support The Patch by not only giving of their money, but also of giving of their time.  Board members, Christmas supporters, Back to School supporters all believe that they have a role to play in helping out families in our community.  Jesus said “…love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  Our supporters, both longtime and “newbies,” believe that we are all in this together and that we all need each other.  Supporters often never meet the people who receive the food that they donate to our food pantry, but they believe that if one person in this world is struggling then they want to play a role in coming alongside them and helping them out.

Childhood adversity is preventable.  Life can be very tough for the families and children that we serve.  The Patch staff, and our supporters, believe that good programs for children, combined with support for their parents, can help to ease the difficulties that Patch families face.  Doug, Calvin Holloway, and other long-time staff members have seen how a child who was loved by a staff member, given the opportunity to try new things, and then supported in their life goals could go on to do extraordinary things.

One of the guiding principles of the Cabbage Patch is: “Provide the members of our community with the tools and disciplines to build productive, creative lives and meet the challenges they face with hope.” Thank you for being part of this vital work!