News You Can Use

For Your Church Newsletter      - Prepared by Steve Tindall

From Lutheran Community Services      June 2014

Editors: This information is prepared for church newsletter editors, secretaries and pastors. Your help in getting the word out is appreciated and will help LCS achieve its mission of “Sharing God’s blessings by helping others in need.” Comments about timing or content are welcome. Contact Steve Tindall (stindall@lcsde.org). 302 654 8886.

Financial Counseling Helps Housing Clients

An LCS housing client is someone who comes to us looking for rent, mortgage, security deposit or utility assistance. Nowadays, after a housing client makes an appointment, we explain to them about Clarifi – our premier provider of financial literacy counseling for low income people. We tell them that before their LCS appointment, they must first make an appointment with Clarifi and show up for it. At that meeting the client and the counselor work out a reasonable personal budget. In this way, when clients arrive for their LCS appointment, they have a plan in hand and a realization about the importance of financial planning. Most clients are agreeable. According to an LCS housing assistance specialist, “I met with a housing client today who shared with me that he found the budgeting assistance from Clarifi very helpful. He said he is looking forward to returning in July when he starts a part-time job that will augment his fixed income, because his Clarifi counselor is going to help him figure out how to set up a savings account so his extra money can grow.”

Success at 10^th Annual LCS Room at the Table Breakfast

This year’s Room at the Table Breakfast held on May 7, 2014, was our tenth. And it was successful. It started with the challenge gifts, which we asked for before the breakfast. 94 people responded with gifts that totaled $88,958! Then came the breakfast. It was a beautiful morning when 320 guests packed the Crystal Ballroom at the Dupont Country Club for a continental breakfast and presentations. Clients Richard Porto and Nola Shockley offered testimonials about the huge impact LCS assistance had on their lives.  At the end of the one-hour breakfast, 189 of those present made gifts totaling $89,055. The total raised for the day through pledges and one-time gifts was a record of sorts -- $178,013. It was the most the breakfast ever raised, except for our first, which was our largest raising over $200,000. But we urge you to keep this in perspective and understand that we are not rolling in money. Much of what was raised is pledged for payment in future years. Our annual operating budget is well over a million dollars, and the money raised by the breakfast is fantastic, essential and already budgeted for our day-to-day operations.