It is a great pleasure to write to you, as I enter my seventh year with Sunday Friends, now as Executive Director. I’m looking forward to working with Janis, our staff, the volunteers and you, our stakeholders in the community, to make 2010 our best and brightest year.

As Sunday Friends begins its fourteenth year of bringing highly effective, low-cost programs to families in need in our community, I want to share with you some of my thoughts about our successes.

Although much has changed at Sunday Friends over the thirteen years, our fundamental approach to breaking the cycle of poverty has not. More than ever, we are convinced that when families work together to earn the things they need while they give back to their community, they are learning and practicing the skills and attitudes required to improve their futures.

Some of the ways our families contribute to their community are exactly the same as when Janis founded Sunday Friends in 1997. They still clean the grounds of the program site, write personal letters to donors and prepare and serve nutritious food.

Unlike our earliest days, we now offer English-as-a-Second language classes as well as one-on-one music lessons. Our art projects reach deeper into the larger community, bringing joy to children’s hospitals, senior centers and local libraries.

We now offer classroom education for our parents spanning a range of topics including financial literacy, parenting, renters’ rights, nutrition, job training and diabetes prevention, to name just a few.

In the beginning, we were only able to offer our students the most basic school supplies in the fall. Now, hundreds of children have access to brand new backpacks loaded with all the tools of academic success they need… all year around.

These are just a few of the ways our programs have improved and brought more opportunities to families in need in our community since 1997. These accomplishments would never have been possible without literally thousands of community supporters.

For more information, please see our Annual Report.

Volunteers are still involved at every level of our organization, from the Board of Directors to “behind the scenes” donation drives to their involvement in our Sunday programs. About 1,400 volunteers participated last year alone. Without these dedicated volunteers, we would not be able to operate on such a low-overhead budget. Their time and talents are invaluable.

The Sunday Friends staff has never been more qualified or more dedicated to fulfilling our mission. These hard-working individuals sustain the continuity and integrity of our high standards. It is a true pleasure to work with each of them.

Our donor community has supported Sunday Friends, especially when we needed it most. Grants from the Lucille and David Packard Children’s Fund gave Sunday Friends its first major funding in 2000 and 2001. In 2003, when we needed a new program site, the San Jose Unified School District offered us free facilities on their Lowell campus. Their support has been outstanding ever since. When economic difficulties threatened to close our programs in 2005, our individual donor base responded immediately, giving us a clear message that they appreciate the value we bring to the community.

I look forward to 2010 with great excitement because I know how important our programs are to our families and what a great positive influence they are having (see our Program Evaluation page for more). The support we receive from so many in the community encourages all of us at Sunday Friends to do our very best for our families, who need us now more than ever.

Thanks to all of you for helping us make a real difference in their lives.

With gratitude,

P.S. Please help us today. You can make an online donation through this website. Google Checkout will allow 100% of your donation to reach Sunday Friends within two business days.