Dear Neighbor,
I’m writing to you today because I want to introduce you to Shannon, a single mother struggling to raise her child in one of the 10 towns in the Blue Hill/ Deer Isle Stonington region serviced by our Community Compass Navigators.
Shannon is struggling to raise her young daughter by herself. Because she doesn’t have a car, she is walking on the side of a country road, pushing her daughter in a stroller.
She feels isolated and needs help finding a job and educational opportunities for her daughter, but she doesn’t know who to turn to.
You may have seen mothers like Shannon walking down the roads in your own town here in our rural coastal region. You might have wondered how you could help, or what could be done to improve life for those in poverty and their children.
You now have the opportunity to be a hero for mothers like Shannon. With just a little support from our Navigator to help connect her to service and educational organizations in our community, she can get the help she needs and stand on her own two feet. But there are many barriers to escaping the trap of poverty and it’s nearly impossible to do alone.
With support from people like you, Shannon can connect with a trusted Community Compass Navigator: a local woman who has lived and known the burden of poverty, who has been trained to help others gain access to resources that they so desperately need.
For Shannon, a Community Compass Navigator can help her get job training so she can support her daughter and provide what she needs. A Navigator can also make welcoming newborn and preschool home visits, assess basic needs, provide early childhood support and development resources, and connect her to a local Community Compass infant play and parent support group that will help ensure she is ready for kindergarten. Our Navigators help connect parents with regional early child development groups such as Maine Families and Head Start. Getting access to early child education services is one of the best keys to readiness for school and long-term solution to poverty. These infants are the future of our community.
These are not luxuries; they are the basics that a family living in poverty needs to have a chance at thriving in the future.
Your support is absolutely essential to help ensure that Shannon and her daughter can connect to these services. Will you give a gift of today?
What happens if Shannon doesn’t get connected to needed services through a Community Compass Navigator and stays separated in generational poverty? Chances are she will continue to struggle. She will continue to feel isolated and alone and she may never find a job to support herself. Her daughter may not be ready for school, which may result in her also living in poverty as an adult.
You have the power to help our neighbors move from poverty to being self-sufficient. You have the power to help break the cycle of poverty and ensure that Shannon’s daughter doesn’t suffer as her mother has.
Please consider a gift for mothers like Shannon today. We need to raise $15,000 by December 31st to expand our successful Early Childhood and Basic Needs Navigator program into two more towns in 2020. You are our hope; please help us make this happen.
Thank you for considering a gift to care for our neighbors.
Sincerely,
Dr Bob Holmberg, President,
Board of Directors, Community Compass