Enough to Thrive- SEVCA's Annual Appeal- Give Today
Envision a world where everyone has enough to thrive and the opportunities they need to achieve that goal. We do, and we need your help to build it.
We welcome you to DONATE today.
November 2021
Dear Friend and Supporter,
For the last 1½ years we’ve been living the nightmare of a massive global health crisis causing undue hardship, suffering, disruption, and death on a previously unimagined scale. But to the extent it’s possible to see a “silver lining” in such a tragic event, it may be the fact that despite all the challenges connected with it, on a national level there was sufficient agreement among policy makers to provide an unprecedented amount of resources to help reduce and alleviate the impact on those most affected by this crisis.
As a result of all the assistance they received, more people were able to recover to a greater degree, move closer to restoring their “normal” lives, and begin, or continue, the journey toward having enough to not just survive, but to actually thrive. For the COVID experience to not have been in vain, this needs to be our new normal and we need your support to ensure that our communities have enough for everyone in them to thrive.
SEVCA’s pandemic response has provided our communities with ongoing access to programs and services that support our neighbors, especially in their time of greatest need. In Windham and Windsor counties during the past year, we provided over 41,200 services to almost 6,100 individuals in 3,300 households.
Our response continues to meet both immediate emergency and long-term recovery needs in a number of ways: With new programs developed specifically to address problems attributable to COVID, enhanced / expanded existing services sorely needed at this time, and broadened eligibility guidelines to ensure that everyone in need can get the support they need.
We’re doing everything we can with all the resources we can muster, but our grants never cover all the costs of providing the needed services. Your continued investments in our mission are needed to match and complete our funding for programs and services that stabilize, improve, and change people’s lives for a better future.
It’s vitally important work but we can’t do it without you.
Will you join us by making a gift today?
Obviously, COVID has presented an unprecedented challenge, requiring us to develop innovative approaches that deepened our impact. Take SEVCA’s role coordinating Vermont Everyone Eats (VEE), a CARES Act, FEMA, and VT Community Foundation–funded initiative to provide meals to food-insecure Vermonters during the pandemic by supporting and working through local restaurants, farmers and food producers, and sustaining local economies: It was built and operates from the grassroots level, maintains maximum participant dignity, and benefits multiple sectors of the economy. More than 250 VT restaurants have participated, 300+ VT farms / food producers have provided 27% of all ingredients, and many thousands of individuals continue to benefit from the program. Since August 2020, VEE has provided more than 1,600,000 meals in partnership with FEMA, the VT Agencies of Commerce & Community Development (ACCD) and Human Services (AHS), and over 100 community organizations statewide.
Vermont Everyone Eats is just one of the many critical and innovative programs SEVCA has been providing for 55 years and continues to provide to meet a broad spectrum of needs for Vermont residents, whether they’re triggered by extraordinary events like COVID-19 or by the ordinary hardships caused by temporary crises or long-term chronic poverty.
But our success in achieving that mission depends in great part on the willingness of compassionate and generous folks like you to be our partners on it. A donation to SEVCA helps ensure that our work to maximize the likelihood that everyone has enough to thrive can remain strong, nimble, and sustainable…now and into the future.
Gratefully,
Steve Geller
Executive Director
