It has been a pleasure and honor to get to know and meet most of you in the last three years. While the world we live in has not been kind, I feel so grateful that we have been able to provide a safe space for adults, teens, families, and current and former staff to learn about building resilience and healing in the wake of a mass violence incident at the school.
You may know we are a grant-funded Resiliency Centerthat was put up in response to the school shooting on May 7th, 2019. The grant that currently funds us expires this December 31st, 2023. However, we are hoping to hear from YOU about whether we should keep our doors open and go after other funding options to sustain this vision to continue to provide trauma-informed resources and safe spaces for our community to continue to heal and build resilience in this tough time.
Why are we asking this question?
We see on average, 80-100 students/staff/parents come through our doors to access free resources, like – therapy, group support, quiet time, studying, art activities, therapy dogs, and MORE. We host about 10 activities per week.
Additionally, we expend about $200/week (paid by donations, not paid by the grant) to feed the community (mostly hungry teens, haha), as it is very important that our kids’ tummies are full so they can use their brain for more learning, healing, and growing. This is to emphasize; the Center is heavily used by the STEM Community.
With that said, our heart is to continue to keep the Center open at least through May 2024, but our big dream is to build a Resiliency Center like ours with sustainable funding that would be available to serve our youth’s mental health.
How will we do this? – We need to hear from YOU!
Please take this 2-minute survey that will help us understand how important the need is for this Center to continue to support our community as a Resiliency Center. The Deadline for taking this survey is May 18th, 2023. Survey – https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DFRSFZ7
With your response, our hope is to deliver the survey results to you by May 25, 2023. Please share amongst your people (current and former STEM members). We appreciate hearing from you to partner in this dream to provide ongoing support for our youth’s mental health!
Sincerely,
Jess Monda, Program Administrator of Center for Strength
