The Communities Foundation of Texas 10th annual North Texas Giving Day impacts Our Friends Place (OFP) in outstanding ways. Gifts to OFP empower young women to go from being homeless to being self-reliant and independent. The young women in the program must work, go to school, and attend weekly life skills sessions. They have a safe place to live, a place to heal, and a place to create a bright future.
Our Friends Place is celebrating 30 years of serving girls and young women in North Texas. It is because of events like North Texas Giving Day bringing awareness about local nonprofits that we are able to expand our programs that help young women soar to success. This unique event allows for matching funds, bonus prizes, donor challenges, friend-raising and fundraising that grows the spirit of giving and energizes everyone to become a philanthropist.
Gifts to Our Friends Place helps young women like Chastity go from being homeless to finishing high school and graduating from Texas Woman’s University with her bachelor’s degree. And Tisha, while at OFP, graduated from Concorde Career College with a dental assistant certificate. Maintaining weekly life skills classes in the transitional living centers is important to prepare the residents for independent living. Shabnam says, OFP “taught me the value of money and helped me with jobs, how to network with people and, basically keep a job for rent and food.” Shabnam has her high school diploma, completed the YearUp program and is now employed full-time at U.S. Trust. These are only a few of the success stories made possible because of a caring community embracing Our Friends Place to make a difference and change lives.
North Texas Giving Day makes gift giving easy with scheduled days of giving, Peer-to-Peer FUNdraising, and day of giving on September 20th. The impact of donations on that day goes even further in supporting Our Friends Place. This year we hope our many Friends will give $30 or more to honor our 30th anniversary.
By Cindy Washlesky, Our Friends Place program specialist
* Graphic and photo provided by Our Friends Place
In nine years, Communities Foundation of Texas‘ North Texas Giving Day has pumped more than $195 million into the North Texas community. In 2017, $39 million was raised through more than 118,000 gifts benefiting over 2,000 nonprofits.
On Thursday, September 20, support Our Friends Place by linking here and spreading the word. #NTxGivingDay
Thank you MySweetCharity for featuring Our Friends Place in the North Texas Giving Day booster series!