Today, in Nashville, is a big day for non-profits. Non-profits across the middle Tennessee area are plugged into an initiative through the Community Foundation called, “the Big Payback“. Through ‘The Big Payback’ website you can donate to a host of non-profits doing good works in our area. We know that non-profits are always in need of financial support, at least it seems that way. The work they do is critical to our society as they fill in niche gaps that go un-noticed or ignored by government services. Without them we would find ourselves in a much less human world.
I’m supporting a few non-profits that I’d hope you might join in with me in supporting in the Big Payback.
Project Transformation is a summer (soon to be year round, fingers crossed) reading and wellness program for low-income / at-risk children and teenagers. They set up their programs in l0w-income areas and provide reading support for children and teens so that their comprehension and skills do not diminish over the summer months. In many cases they improve. This group also provides nutritious meals and other wellness activities and education for the participants.
Open Table Nashville is a outcropping of some of the work that was done with tent city, before the floods. This group provides advocacy, relational, and step by step support to our city’s homeless population. They know our homeless. Seriously, they know them, know their story and are trusted by our homeless. With that trust and relationship they work with individuals and couples to get them off the streets and into adequate housing where they can begin lives anew. It’s a beautiful thing.
Miriam’s Promise is a adoption group that provides services for adopting families at affordable costs (offset by their fundraising support). As well as working with adopting families, MP will walk with mothers who are considering putting their child up for adoption from start to finish, and even after finish. They will also do a lot of education support around the community.
Nurses for Newborns is one of those great programs that targets families at a most vulnerable stage, pre-natal & birth. Babies have a lot of needs in pre-natal stages in order to set then up for success. After birth those needs continue, they just change a bit. I’ve always felt if we had better, or more accessible pre-natal and early birth care for each mother & child we’d have a ton less societal issues in coming years. But try and get people to buy into pro-active measures versus re-active measures. It’s a chore, luckily these folks are doing this work.
