You Light Up Many Lives

Thank you for visiting Rock Springs Park in Alton, Illinois during the 2008 holiday season. The spectacular light display is an annual tradition for thousands of families and reaps rewards greater than you can imagine.

Your donation to Christmas Wonderland, Inc., made after you drove into the forested park, over the illuminated bridge tunnel and up to the volunteer at the entrance, translated into achieving our mission.

We are on a mission to enable children and families to develop positive skills to meet life's challenges. One way is through solution-focused therapy at our Transitions Counseling program, a quiet professional service for families in our community who face challenges in life.

Christmas Wonderland, Inc. just gave Transitions Counseling a $500 donation. That donation came directly from yours. Thank you so much!

Brett Stawar, board member of Christmas Wonderland, Inc. and President/CEO of the Alton Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau said, "We wanted to donate much of the proceeds to local charities this year. The board approved the recommendations a couple of weeks ago...and Transitions was on the list!"

Donations like yours and grants from the United Way of Greater St. Louis and Alton Woman’s Home Association enable us to subsidize the counseling fees of nearly 500 low-income clients each year. By helping them develop skills to meet life’s challenges, we join you and Christmas Wonderland, Inc. in serving our community. Youth stay in school, adults continue to work and raise healthy families and our community maintains its vibrancy.

Thanks again for supporting Christmas Wonderland. We hope next year's lights shine even brighter for you.

Are you in there?

The good work of our staff, board, volunteers, community partners and, especially, our clients is in our latest issue of Riverbend Families, a community newsletter.

Are you in it?

If you aren't, someone you know probably is. Read it now.

Way to GoodSearch!

We just received $29.06 from www.GoodSearch.com. Is that thanks to you?

In June 2008 Riverbend Head Start & Family Services joined the 70,000 other nonprofits on board this no-brainer fundraiser and asked our community to GoodSearch and GoodShop for us. It's working!

GoodSearch is an internet search engine powered by Yahoo! After selecting RHSFS to be the beneficiary, every search someone does through GoodSearch earns nearly 1.3 cents for RHSFS. The $29.06 is for searches conducted through September 2008. That means thousands of internet searches and purchases were done through GoodSearch and GoodShop to benefit RHSFS.

Oprah Magazine, ABC News,CNN, The New York Times and more have picked up the GoodSearch story and thousands of dollars are earned each day by nonprofits all over the world.

GoodShop.com is the perfect solution for getting some extra bang for your holiday shopping buck. RHSFS could earn close to 3% of your online purchases from 800+ retail partners from Amazon to Zappos. Go to www.GoodShop.com. It's easy to select Riverbend Head Start & Family Services as the beneficiary and start shopping.

Thank you for GoodSearching and GoodShopping for our mission! Please, tell others to use their computer as an agent for change as well.

www.GoodSearch.com
www.GoodShop.com

To Market, To Market

Thank you Jim, Shirley, Rhonda and the rest of the team at Office Depot in Alton, Illinois! They donated hundreds of dollars worth of cool office and classroom supplies to us today. Pictured is Store Manager Jim Miller on the left, and John Norton, our Facilities Janitor.

We got the call and rushed right over to find a palette full of boxes of goodies. A little something for everyone in our agency, including the kiddos we serve in our programs that get them ready for big school.

These supplies will go a long way toward helping us achieve our mission to enable children and families to develop positive skills to meet life's challenges.

Thanks again, Mission Partner!

Shop Office Depot (shameless plug)

A Happy Father's Day...early

Recently fantastic fathers, like Rodrick (in the picture) and other positive male role models helped their preschoolers make apple pies from biscuits, filling and cinnamon.

While the pies baked, the families read a book together, and then played outside on the playground.

The event promoted father-child bonding, which is important for a child’s brain development and self-esteem. It also let the men know that they are valuable, too.

The families are enrolled in our Head Start Home-Based program. Rodrick and his son, Rodrick, Jr. are from Alton. Other families came from Bethalto, Cottage Hills, and Roxana.

Thanks for being there, Dads!

A book in the hand is worth two in the...actually, it's priceless.

Congress has put tax dollars where the National Endowment for the Arts’ mouth is. It recommended level funding for the federal literacy program Reading is Fundamental, Inc. (RIF) that provides free books to underserved children.

That means we got a grant! It will put 3,753 free books in the hands of 913 babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers in Madison County who may be at-risk of failing in school due to poverty, a disability or some other factor.

Last November the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) published a report on reading habits of youth that revealed “recent declines in voluntary reading and test scores alike, exposing trends that have severe consequences for American society,” according to its web site.

Yikes! We want to make sure that the little kids in our programs grow up reading and learn to love it. Grants from RIF and TheBANK of Edwardsville (who provided the required local match of $1,784) allow us to do that.

Family reading events for our kids and their parents will be planned throughout the year, some in partnership with the nearest public library. Designed to encourage parents to read to their kids at home, the events include a warm, nutritious meal served family–style, a guest reader, a craft centered on a children’s book, and culminate with each child choosing a free book to take home and keep courtesy of RIF.

Founded in 1966, RIF is the oldest and largest children and family nonprofit literacy organization in the United States. RIF’s highest priority is reaching underserved children from birth to age eight. Through community volunteers in every state and U.S. territory, such as Macy’s department stores, RIF provides 4.5 million children with 16 million new, free books and literacy resources each year.

All RIF programs combine three essential elements to foster children's literacy: reading motivation, family and community involvement, and the excitement of choosing free books to keep.

This is the ninth year Riverbend Head Start & Family Services has received a RIF grant.

GoodSearch to support local children and families

What if Riverbend Head Start & Family Services earned a penny every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause? Well, now it can!

GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half of its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up!

GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 37 percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy's and Barnes & Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, you’ll be supporting your favorite cause.

Just go to www.goodsearch.com and be sure to enter Riverbend Head Start & Family Services as the charity you want to support. Don't forget to set GoodSearch as your home page and spread the word about this simple way to support Madison County children and families.