Local company organizes for foster kids

On May 25, 2016, in Latest News, by The Somerville Times

ECOlogic and Together We Rise worked together to get some nice new bicycles to several local foster kids.

By Louise Carpenter

One local company recently found a way to make their employee teambuilding day mean more than just time out of the office.

ECOlogic, a local cleaning company, decided that they would partner with Together We Rise, a national non-profit focused on supporting kids and young adults in foster care, and as a team put together 37 bikes in one day.

In order to ensure that those bikes went to the right place, ECOlogic contacted Communities for People, a local nonprofit whose intensive foster care program is based in Somerville.

On Monday May 16, ECOlogic employees came to CFP’s Twin Cities Office with four cargo vans full of bikes. Because CFP’s IFC Program works with kids as young as several weeks old and as old as 21, the small, medium and large bikes from ECOlogic will ensure that every child and young adult in a CFP foster home who needs a bike will have one.

Although May is National Foster Care Month, agencies like Communities for People often struggle to find extra ways to recognize and support the amazing foster families and the children placed in their homes. ECOlogic and Communities for People are committed to working together in the future and are an example of the new and creative ways non-profit agencies are finding donations and other resources to support their clients.

Communities for People has been providing residential placement and foster homes to children, adolescents and young adults for almost 40 years, but it is only recently that it has begun fundraising in effort to minimize their reliance on government funding and is learning very quickly that out of the box, creative thinking is the new face of fundraising.

Everyone likes being able to do more than one thing at time and CFP is working with companies like ECOlogic to find ways to make fundraising feel more engaging and effective. There are lot of amazing nonprofit agencies in Massachusetts and CFP works hard to stand out so that it can better support the children and families it serves.

Innovative fundraising, especially when it accomplishes two things at once, is the future of fundraising. Communities for People intends to employ these strategies moving forward to engage and cultivate donors.

To learn more about Communities for People, their mission and foster care visit www.wefostercare.org.

If you want to support private business like ECOlogic who give back to the community, please visit www.ecologicltd.com.