January 18, 2023 at 12:50 p.m.
A Note of Gratitude from the SFOH
By By Whitney Budd, founder of Student's Fund of Hope-
When we found out around this time last year that we were nominated to be in the running to be chosen as their charity partner for 2022 we couldn’t believe that we were even in the same category as much larger and worthy philanthropists.
Sure enough, our community and supporters came through for us, voting each day and allowing us to make it through bracket after bracket.
When we found out we were the winners, we couldn’t believe it. We knew that this would open doors and avenues that we had always dreamed about. Opportunities with this sort of monetary value is few and far between so we really wanted to capitalize on this and reach as many students in need as we could.
Shortly after becoming one of the charity partners this year, we were able to open our own community engagement hub.
At the hub we have been able to add programs under our umbrella as resources to our community such as a recovery group meeting place, a home for free mental health counseling for the children we serve, a safe space for families to connect with us for help, and most recently, free art classes to all children in our community.
In 2022 alone we gave away nearly 40k to families and children in need in our community with various different programming, resources including tragic event relief, homelessness, and essential needs.
In addition to all of these things we have been able to do we also assisted in funding portions of our elementary schools new STEM lab giving brand new learning experiences and opportunities to every student in our school.
Being a charity partner greatly impacted not only our organization as a whole but the hundreds and hundreds of children we were able to assist.
The ripple effect from this was felt far and wide and we cannot thank you all enough.
From the bottoms of our hearts, we thank you.
