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Dear Friends,
Sunday Friends has moved.... but not far. Just across the Lowell School campus.
Although this move was unexpected (and unbudgeted), it certainly was welcome. We're excited.
The new and improved Treasure Chest is about 50% bigger. There is much more room to display the daily consumable basic necessities our families are working so hard to earn. And we're able to serve more families in less time. It also allows us to purchase merchandise more efficiently!
The new Treasure Chest provides more space and comfort for our families' shopping experience. It more closely resembles real world shopping than any store we have ever had in the past. No wonder we're so excited.
The San Jose Unified School District and the Saratoga Rotary Charitable Foundation, as well as dozens of volunteers, were instrumental in the move. We would like to express our gratitude to them for their generosity.
We hope you will share in our excitement and make an
online donation now to help us stock the new shelves.
Although much has changed at since Sunday Friends began in 1997, 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.
Thanks to all of you for helping us make a real difference in their lives.
With gratitude,
P.S. I know how important our programs
are to our families and what a great positive influence they are having. Our
Program Evaluations make a convincing case.
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