News You Can Use - November 2014

For Your Church Newsletter

From Lutheran Community Services   - By Steve Tindall               

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.

Best Ever Walk Run Results - $52,129.00!!!

5....4...3...2...1.... GO!

What an outstanding Walk Run. The weather and crowd were wonderful; and the money raised surpassed all previous records -- $52,129! The previous high was last year’s $46,172.  Why such good results? Because of the excellent effort put forward by all 277 participants, combined with record-breaking fundraising by some real pros. The person who raised the most was perennial favorite Jan Hufnal, with $5,405, a record. The second place adult was James Nichols who raised $3,000. Third was Fred Melton who raised $2,150. The best story about fundraising, however, belongs to a youth fundraiser – Dan Luettgen from Grace who raised $4,625 another record. Other youthful fund-raisers are Hope Munson in second place with $422, followed by Rachel Ierien, who raised $370 for third place. But remember, the real winners are all the thousands of hungry families that receive LCS food as a result of the funds raised at this event!

St. Marks - Winner for the Most People and
Highest Percentage of their Congregation

Now for the churches. Given the performances of Hufnal and Luettgen, Grace was an easy first place in the fundraising department with $15, 378. St. Mark’s was second in that race with $12,934. St. Mark’s with 70 participants was a shoo-in for winning the largest turnout trophy. They also took home the trophy for having the highest percentage of congregational participation with a hefty 13.78% participating.

DuPont came out in force and to Live United.

The most exciting part of the event was the 2014 Youth Run Against Hunger. Among the boys, first place was taken by Nathan Hawk who finished the 5k in 21:11. He was followed by Dan Luettgen (23:35) and Ben Swift (25:59). The first place girl finisher was Phoebe Swanson who handled the course in 28:19. Second place among the girls was claimed by Megen Derrickson who finished in 33:46 with Riley Keller close on her heels to take third in 33:47.

Thank You to All of the Volunteers who came out to help that day!

Financial Literacy Update

LCS refers all its homelessness prevention clients to Clarifi, a nonprofit provider of financial literacy training. Last year only about 10% of our clients were taking advantage of this option. But virtually all need it, so LCS strengthened its partnership with Clarifi and changed how the program was administered. The result? So far in 2014, 78% of homeless prevention clients have had financial literacy training under the program.