Lighting The Way Fund
...Ensuring our continued ability to change and save lives
...Providing resources to respond to new types of human needs
Purpose of Fund
The purpose of the Lighting the Way Fund is to establish a permanent resource to ensure our future ability to respond quickly and effectively to changing societal needs. This Fund will asssure our ability to develop and maintain the most efficient and best services for those most in need.
Principal Preservation
The principal in this fund will be maintained and protected. Income only will be used to support new programs and services. Your gift to the Lighting the Way Fund is an investment that will be preserved and will provide the continuing resources needed to change and save lives for years to come.
Ready and Able to Serve
The people we serve benefit greatly from our programs. We must continue to offer high quality care to the people who need help. A revenue source that is generated by the Lighting the Way Fund will mean we can offer people the kinds of services that we know are needed, when they are needed. This fund will make it possible for us to be proactive and establish programs based upon the needs in the community, without being dependent on outside funding sources to make vital services possible.
How You Can Help
We are calling upon you and other caring citizens to invest in our Lighting the Way Fund as a source of future help and hope for those in need of intervention. With your help, as we have for 125 years, The Salvation Army of the Syracuse Area will continue to change and save lives as we respond to the emerging needs of people in our community.
New Issues
Now, declining family stability is forcing many in our community to face new types of emotional, mental and financial pressures. These challenges affect all levels of our community: children, young adults, families and senior citizens.
Some of these pressures are faced by children who are neglected and abused. Others are young adults with serious mental illness who have lost family supports and are in jeopardy of being victims of crime and homelessness. Also included are families who struggle and lack the supports needed to maintain stability and fragile senior citizens who require appropriate non-institutional options to remain independent in our community.
Our Work
For 125 years, The Salvation Army of the Syracuse Area has responded to basic human needs by providing programs that offer food, clothing, and shelter. These services have been, and continue to be, funded largely through traditional funding sources. As the needs in our community have changed, we have responded by developing intensive programs requiring targeted interventions and very specific kinds of expertise.
Our Creativity and Success
The Salvation Army of the Syracuse Area has demonstrated a unique ability to create new programs and achieve successful outcomes that have been recognized by government agencies, private corporations, foundations and accrediting organizations.
We know that intensive work with individuals and families gives them the greatest chance to overcome emotional and mental challenges. We also believe that people are most healthy when they do not exist alone but are tightly woven into other positive relationships.
Changing Needs
Families in our community have faced mounting challenges during the past 30 years. The poverty level in some areas of the county has gotten worse, and many lower-income working families are simply not able to meet their monthly obligations. Increases in crime, violence, and drug and alcohol related problems are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what many families living in poverty face.
The court system has seen a significant increase in activity, both in the criminal and family court settings. The number of children at risk for abuse and neglect has risen dramatically, as has the number of children languishing in foster care. The incidence in youth violence has risen and the public education system continues to battle truancy and low graduation rates.
Public subsidies for day care have decreased just as the number of poor working families has gone up. Access to health care is beyond reach for more and more families, as employers cannot afford to pay the high cost of health coverage.
For the less fortunate in our community, the past 3 decades have not been kind.
Creating Solutions
As a member of the human service network in this community for 125 years, The Salvation Army of the Syracuse Area is both involved in, and knowledgeable about, human needs. We participate in virtually every task force and provider network, and we are constantly researching best practices and new methods of intervention and treatment.
Out track record of success is one that is recognized at the local and national levels. The Salvation Army of the Syracuse Area is the only human service organization in the county to achieve accreditation from the Council on Accreditation. Accreditation is awarded only to organizations that meet demanding requirements in several areas, including quality of programs, qualifications of staff, procedures and methods, and on-going continuous quality improvement.
Our programs have been recognized as being blueprint methods of intervention. The Vera Institute, an organization that reviews criminal justice initiatives, featured our PRISM program in December 2005 report as a model program. We have also received recognition from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Mutual of America, and others.
Our mission to meet human needs requires us to strive always for more and better solutions. We have developed a number of programs over the past several years that have proven effective in dealing with complex social problems. The innovative services we have created offer strategies in dealing with juvenile justice, preventive services, foster care, mental illness, senior services and critical early education.
Ensuring the Future
In the past, the costs of many of our services were paid entirely through public or private sources. That is rarely the case at the present time, and we do not anticipate that it ever will be again. Public funding requires local match and typically doesn't cover the entire cost of operating a program. The reimbursement rate for the services we provide at our Adult Day Center, for example, has not increased in mroe than a decade. In spite of the lack in increase in funding, we are serving an increased number of people, and paying more fr the cost of staff, utilities, insurance, and other necessary expenses. The same is true for the funding and the costs of many of our services. There is a tremendous lag in terms of increases in reimbursement rates for services, while at the same time the need for services continues to increase.
It is also true that our hands-on work in the community and with people in needs means that we see needs when they emerge. We have the expertise and experience to develop innovative programs to respond to changes in our community. It is essential that we have funds available to allow us to be proactive in offering new and expanding services, rather than waiting for public or private funders to focus on those needs. A permanent, growing fund would enable us to assist people quickly and effectively, using the most innovatie models and methods.
An investment in the Lighting the Way Fund is a commitment to the betterment of people in need in this community now and in the future.
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