In 2023, Combined Community Services continued to see a record number of families who needed support from our Food Pantry. Currently, 1 in 6 Americans are unsure where their next meal is coming from. Thirteen million are children who feel hunger’s impact on their overall health and ability to perform in school.
We are blessed through the generosity of the community and our partners to be able to provide for families from the pantry.
This Saturday, May 11, please join the National Association of Letter Carriers to help Stamp Out Hunger! By placing canned food at your mailbox for Letter Carriers to collect, you can help the CCS Food Pantry to continue to provide for the neighbors in need in our community!
GIVE TO LIFE-CHANGE
While food donations are critical for these services to be available, CCS also can’t operate without staff, our building, utilities, volunteers, etc. Would you consider making a donation to Combined Community Services? Any amount helps us be a life-changing ministry to our community and support people in crisis and help people accomplish self-sufficiency.
CCS is a non-profit and all donations are tax-deductible
Learning Life Skills & “Scratching Off “Goals
And Becoming Self-Sufficient for My Family
I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you to everyone at CCS that has helped me and my children get through the last 7 years. We would not have been able to do it without your help.
I started using some of the services that CCS had to offer in 2015. A friend had told me about the food pantry when I mentioned that I wasn’t receiving enough from Food Stamps. After visiting the food pantry I learned about many other services that CCS had to offer.
I participated in the Adopt-A-Family Program and my children were able to receive Christmas gifts that year. We also went to the winter coat drive and they were given brand new coat, hats, and gloves. The following year we participated in the Tools For School Program for the first time. We would continue to participate in those programs until 2021.
In 2017 I came across a brochure for Project Independence. I sent an email to the Project Independence Coordinator and I was immediately put in touch with Abby who would become my case worker for the next few years. I met with Abby every month and she helped me write down my short and long-term goals as part of the program. She would give me life skills to complete every month and I would receive gas vouchers for completing them. CCS would hold workshops for different things that I participated in. My favorite was the Crock-Pot workshops.
My favorite part about being involved with Project Independence was that every month I was held accountable for the things I was completing when I met with my case manager.
She would help me realize what goals were most important and what I wanted to accomplish first. Then she would give me the resources I needed to make sure I was completing them. At one of our meetings, she gave me a binder on how to fix your credit. One of my biggest goals was to buy a house for me and my children. I read the binder in one weekend. That Monday I started making phone calls and requested a copy of my credit report. I immediately began making a list of the different things I needed to pay off and started making $10 a month payments on one debt at a time. Back then that was all I could afford. In 2018 I lost my rental assistance and had to move in with family. I saved enough money for a couple months and was able to find a house to rent. Rent was $900 a month and although I was worried about it, I knew that if I stuck to the budget my caseworker and I had made, I would be able to make it work.
At our monthly meetings we would discuss things that were happening in my life and she would help me make decisions. She helped me decide that I needed to further my healthcare career to create a better life for my boys and I, so I decided to take a QMA class where I would receive a raise at completion. Slowly, I was paying off my debts, going off of government programs and completing my goals. In 2020, I completed my QMA class and got a raise and along with the other quarterly raises that we had received every year I was now making almost twice as much as I was when I first started utilizing the programs CCS has to offer. I was becoming self-sufficient.
That fall I became sick with COVID. My case worker and her colleagues dropped off food, gift cards, and baby supplies to my door step. I was so shocked and so grateful for all of their help. That winter I gave birth to my 4th little boy. I was off work for 12 weeks and that was only possible because I had planned for it and budgeted thanks to my case worker.
In the fall of 2021, I was slowly coming off of more of the government programs. I was no longer receiving child care vouchers or food stamps. The only assistance I was receiving at the time was the energy assistance. Because of COVID I had to be off work a few different times to stay home with my children. I became late on my rent and my electric bill. I reached out to my case worker and she put me in touch with other people at CCS who helped me find the resources to pay my rent and my electric bill. In the fall if 2021 I bought a car and for the first time I bought it without a co-signer, all on my own.
I have not been late on any of my payments for anything this year. I am no longer on any government assistance programs. I have officially graduated from Project Independence and I am officially a homeowner and scratching the last thing off my list of goals that I originally made when I first became a part of Project Independence.
I would not have been able to accomplish any of this without the help and support from everyone at CCS. So thank you, so much!!!
Project Independence Participant
“B”
Our programs help low-income families achieve economic independence with the goal to help bring individuals experiencing a crisis to stability.
Prom Dress Giveaway!
Prom is coming soon at Warsaw Community High School. If you need a prom dress to participate in this special event, please call the CCS office to schedule a time to come in at 574-267-6019. We have many beautiful dressed to choose from!
#MeijerSimplyGive Hunger Relief Program through June 29
Combined Community Services is happy to partner with Meijer to provide hunger relief to local families through its #MeijerSimplyGive hunger relief program. Visit meijercommunity.com/simply-give to learn more. Join in on this easy way to give $10 to those in need in Kosciusko County whether your shopping in store or online!
