Link to Creative Teaching Awards
DETROIT, Michigan (3/11/2024) AL members Karen Boyk, Karen Graham and Dar Laskowski were on a mission to deliver checks to the recipients of this year’s Link to Creative Teaching. First stop and pictured: Detroit’s Carver STEM Academy, two teachers, Brianna McCoy and Stefan Carter, will facilitate the student council’s start-up of their SHARING TABLE idea. This is a community outreach program, based right at the school, striving to teach community empathy, cooperation, planning, and ordering. Then, it was onto nearby Detroit’s Barton Elementary, where six more checks were awarded to very grateful educators. These projects were:
Kindergarten… Flexible seats help fidgety students
3-6 gr…..Writer’s Café works on writing skills
4-5 gr…. STEM Robotics team supplies
5-6gr.…Girls Rock after-school girls’ empowerment club
6 gr. …..Team building activity at OU Ropes course
PE…Gaga Ball exercise. flexibility, fast movement
A Child Who Reads is a Child Who Succeeds
Our annual book drive will run through April 20, 2024. Donations of new board books (no larger than 5×7) and K-6 books are greatly appreciated.
The reading book Wish List can be found here.
Please drop off new books at The ReSale Connection (204 S. Main Street, Rochester) or, if it is more convenient, cash donations are also accepted.
Your past generosity has helped thousands of children enjoy a NEW book. Thanks so much for your anticipated support of our 2024 book drive.
ROCHESTER, Michigan (7/7/23) –Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan (ALSM) is a non- profit 501© (3), hands-on, all volunteer organization with 266 members. This past year we have logged in 43,832 volunteer hours, helping more than 20,000 infants, children and adults. Since 1993, we have assisted more than 367,286 people in Michigan communities. We are one of 120 chapters within the National Assistance League, established in California in the 1890’s.
Our Philanthropic programs continue all year round. Member volunteers purchase, tag, inventory, transport, pack, store, and distribute merchandise. ALSM programs are provided without any charge to recipients, and staffed by Chapter Members and Community Volunteers.
OPERATION SCHOOL BELL visits Warren Fitzgerald
WARREN, Michigan – Operation School Bell visited Fitzgerald Public Schools, Warren Michigan with new winter jackets, hats/gloves, shirts, socks, underwear, hygiene kits and books for
over 700 students at Westview and Mound Park elementary schools. OSB chairs, Carole Berry, Carol Murphy, and Karen Fisher, greeted Superintendent Hollie Stange, who expressed her appreciation of Assistance League of Southeastern
Michigan’s generosity of clothes and necessities for all the children. An excited third grader, when choosing her new jacket, hat and gloves, said, “I can’t wait until winter!”
Thank you to our hardworking OSB chairs, liaisons, chapter members and to a community of care and support from GM Controllership, 110 Marketing, First State Bank, and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
NOURISHING NEIGHBORS: Monthly Meal Kits fight food insecurity
ROCHESTER, Michigan (7/7/23) – Assistance League® of Southeastern Michigan collaborates with Neighborhood House Food Pantry to provide 200 plus nutritious Meal Kits each month. In addition, Assistance League impacts our community’s food insecurity by giving monthly financial support for pantry inventory. Full shelves insure resources for kit assembly.
Nourishing Neighbors Chairs, Dee Barry, Barbara Donohoe, and Diane Ebinger organize weekly Meal Kit member assemblies with healthy recipes and nonperishable food pantry ingredients. Kits are distributed to each shopper and are a model for client meal preparation. Pantry shoppers add the necessary fresh ingredients when they visit. A recipe cart also keeps menus available for a repeat selection. “Clients develop favorites and will often request a certain kit” added Diane Ebinger.
A typical meal kit is identified by its colorful bag.
- Printed entree recipes are attached to the bags.
- Nonperishable ingredients are included.
- Meal kits feed 6-8 people.
- Clients receive a random selection when making their monthly visit.
- Card insert in kits provides a list of nutrition related mental health resources.
To help make a difference in someone’s life, monetary donations are gratefully accepted at:
Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan
P.O. Box 80932, Rochester
Michigan 48308-0932
or go to our website: www.semich.AssistanceLeague.org
BOOK DRIVE – Fantastic Results!
Once again our members, family, friends, and community have responded. Our donations numbered 1,287 books and $675 in monetary donations.
Operation School Bell, One-2-One Tutoring, Wee Help and Neighborhood House Back-2-School Blast Off will all benefit from receiving new books. The gently used books will be given to local agencies.
Thank you to all who supported the book drive, and a special thank you to Mary Humes, Jill Greimel, Geri Hogan and Sandy Bera, the OSB book committee, for their help. A child who reads is a child who succeeds.
Aging Out Of Foster Care: ‘Journey into a new life’
ROCHESTER, Michigan, 6/20/2023: Any young person moving out on their own needs certain essentials, but it’s particularly true for those who were raised in the foster care system as children, have turned 18 and are now on their own.
It’s called “aging out,” the process of a youth leaving formal control of foster care into independent living. In Michigan, approximately 10,000 children are in foster care, and less than 1,000 young people age out every year.
Understanding what makes a house a home, the Michigan Assistance League chapter has collaborated with nonprofit agencies, Big Family of Michigan and Orchards Children’s Services, both assist young adults beginning a new, independent life in a home, apartment or dormitory.
“Transitioning out of foster care is a difficult and overwhelming time. Thanks to Assistance League’s generosity, our young people do not have to worry about being able to afford basic household items. Now they have a beautiful and clean space to be proud of as they begin their life as independent adults,” said Erin King, Supervisor, Foster Care and Independent Living of Orchards Children’s Services in Southfield.
Assistance League’s Aging Out co-chairs Dolores Barry, Violet Cholakian and Mary Ebert shopped, coordinated and assembled 24 bathroom/cleaning supplies kits. Each recipient receives a kit which contains new hamper, bath mat, two sets of towels, wastebasket, caddy with personal hygiene products, a gift card to a local grocery store, and over 30 cleaning supplies such as mop, paper products, liquid cleansers, broom and dustpan, utility bucket, and laundry products.
“These are exactly the things I was looking at and trying to shop for them,” said a 20-years-old woman who moved into her own apartment and works at a grocery store.
A 19-year-old recipient, who lives in an apartment and attends college said, “Oh my gosh. There is so much stuff. This is amazing. Literally perfect. Thank you so much.”
“While our chapter programs continue to help so many children and adults, we can’t forget those ‘aging out’ of foster care. It is very important to let these young adults know that we care and support them as they begin a new life of independence,” said Denise Kaminske, President of Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan.
Did you know………
Layette Kit Assemblies July 2023
On two warm days in July a wonderful group of women, including veteran and new members as well as some community volunteers, gathered to assemble our Wee Help Layette Kits. Making quick work of the tasks at hand, their efforts were nothing short of amazing.
On July 24th, our volunteers arrived to help us prepare the items to be included in our layette kits. Bottles, pacifiers, books, and bibs were unwrapped and sorted by gender. Having increased the number of layette kits that were going to be made, 380 sleepers and 380 onesies were unpacked, neatly folded, and stacked in bins.
On July 25th, the assembly line was ready. Shortly after the assembly of kits began, a new member suggested a change regarding how the bags were packed that would make it easier to accommodate the pack of wipes which were a recent addition. An adjustment was easily made on the assembly line, and everyone went quickly back to work. That suggestion not only better accommodated the wipes but made it easier to add the hat and bib and seal the bag at the end. Henry Ford would have been proud! With great care and attention to detail, our volunteers assembled 190 boys and 190 girls layette kits that morning.
Shortly after the last kit was assembled, our liaisons began arriving to pick up the layette kits for distribution. By noon Friday of that week, 167 boys and 166 girls’ layette kits had been picked up for delivery.
Wee Help provides layette kits and Safe Sleep packages to mothers for their newborns. Kits contain receiving blanket, clothing, diapers, bottle, pacifier, bib washcloth baby book, knotted hat and a fact sheet from The Office of Women’s Health on Postpartum Depression. Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan has been serving infants and their mothers through the Wee Help program since 1994, benefitting 14,234 infants.
MISTLETOE MARKETPLACE: Got tickets?
ROCHESTER, Michigan (10/10/22) – Where do you go for the perfect fall outing? One that combines a concert, silent auction, boutique shopping, raffles, complimentary valet parking and a luncheon with friends?
The answer, of course, is Mistletoe Marketplace, the 19th annual holiday fundraiser by Assistance League of Southeastern Michigan, held at Palazzo Grande on Wednesday, November 16, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The entertainment will be a special guest performance by NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” contestants, the nationally acclaimed Detroit Youth Choir, with members age 8-18.
You will be able to bid on deluxe items, take part in raffles and shop while visiting with friends. Palazzo Grande is located at 54660 Van Dyke Ave. in Shelby Township 48316.
Sign up online while there are still open tables at: https://alsm.cbo.io
For registration questions, please contact Tiffani Wolf at 269-599-3473.
Tickets are $90 per person. Funds raised benefit the chapter’s established philanthropic programs, which include Operation School Bell for school children, Wee Help for infants, Assault Survivor Kits for victims of abuse and Nourishing Neighbors for those with food insecurity.
BLAST OFF 2 SCHOOL: Books, bags and backpacks
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