Dear Friends-
The arrival of a new year this year was certainly a cause for celebration given the challenges of 2020. But beyond the obvious reasons for welcoming 2021, this particular new year was something of a benchmark for the staff and board of Families Moving Forward. Believe it or not, the agency officially marked its five year anniversary on 1/1/21. My how time flies when you’re providing human services!
In the spirit of the anniversary, I wanted to share five lessons learned related to FMF’s growth and evolution since the merger. I’m hoping that you, our supporters and volunteers, have observed some of the dynamics below as you’ve walked with us since 2015.
- 1 + 1 =3: I realize that this isn’t mathematically correct, but our most sincere hope during the merger process was that the whole would be more than the sum of its parts. We can accomplish more when we work together and we have seen this formula come to fruition over and over again through our collaborative work, our evening enrichment programming, and the many ways that the community supports the agency and our guests.
- Follow the child: Going beyond interventions and supports for our parents to being deliberate about addressing the needs of our youngest guests directly has been a paradigm shift for the agency and one that we believe will promote a host of positive outcomes for our kids. Special thanks to Rachel Taylor and Diana Smith, our children’s services team, for their good work in this area.
- Carrots > Sticks: We believe that incentivizing healthy behaviors and recognizing successes are more effective than an unhealthy power dynamic that relies on consequences and punishments. We want to build strengths not emphasize weaknesses. An old adage about honey and vinegar comes to mind.
- Speak your dream: A dream doesn’t exist until you speak it into existence. Whether it’s a dream job, a new apartment or a fundraising goal, speaking your dreams out loud helps build community and support for your vision. It’s also more than a little scary.
- Partners not projects: FMF strives to build partnerships in the community that address the needs of the families we serve. We can’t do it alone. Wicked problems require collaboration and partnership – between agencies, between sectors, and between FMF and our guests. Together, we can accelerate the pace of social change.
I could probably do five more of these but you’ll have to wait five more years for that. One of the challenges of this work is that it’s never done. One family moves out, another moves in. I promise you that we won’t rest on our laurels. It has been incredibly fulfilling to serve in this role and to be a part of this tremendous team since the merger. Thank you for being there every step of the way. We really couldn’t do this work without you. Happy New Year. I sincerely hope to see you back at FMF as soon as we can safely do so.
MLK Day of Service
For so many years, MLK Day has not only honored the incredible life and teachings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. but has been a day for many people to volunteer in their community in his memory. The truth is that we miss our volunteers being able to be onsite here at FMF, not only because many hands make light work, but because we miss their smiles, conversations, and comradery.
It was very strange to not host volunteers on this year's MLK Day of Service, but we made sure we spent our day in service for those who couldn't. Our staff broke into teams so that we could adequately social distance and tackled several projects to make our life a little bit easier for everyone. We cleaned, rearranged, and organized our "Parent Store" and even relocated our "Children's Store" to a more kid-friendly space. We cleaned out a catch-all closet that was once named "The Meditation Room," which we all get a kick out of because it is literally chaos. Our staff cleaned out refrigerators where we had been storing leftover food/milk from our food delivery services. We swept and we cleaned and some of us used muscles we hadn't used in a long time to make our space a better community for all of us. Here are a few pics of our results!
As you can see, we are very low on cleaning supplies. In fact, most of this was gone this morning (pic taken on Monday)! If you would like to donate all purpose cleaning spray/wipes, please contact Katy@fmfnc.org to schedule a time to drop off your donation. Thank you!
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