During the Thanksgiving season we often see pictures of the cornucopia – the “horn of plenty” overflowing with fruits and flowers and grains. It reminds us to be thankful for the abundances in our lives.
The YW’s cornucopia overflows every day with generous volunteers, donors and friends. We are thankful for our Board and Junior Board members who give of their time and other resources to assure that we can keep our lights on and our programs at the highest quality. We are thankful for individuals and groups who volunteer their time and share their talents with our child care classes, our After-School Enrichment Program, our domestic violence services and our residents. We are thankful for the hundreds of individual and corporate donors and friends who contribute to the Purse & Passion and KIDS Korner Luncheons, Flower Sale, My Sister’s Closet, Santa’s Workshop and the annual YW Friends Campaign. This year we are especially grateful to the individuals, donors and community partners who have supported our work in YWoodlawn, where residents have thrived because of the vast array of programming available.
Our program statistics for 2011 show that we served hundreds of children in our child care and ASEP programs, hundreds of individuals and families in our shelters and housing programs and thousands of individuals through our domestic violence programs. But our clients are not statistics; they are individuals whom we serve one person at a time with whatever resources we have to help them have a better quality of life.
When we see one family move from a homeless shelter to independent living, when we see one child’s grades improve because a caring tutor helped her to understand the homework problems, when we see one woman escape from an abusive relationship – we are thankful that the YW, with its cornucopia of volunteers, donors and friends can make that difference in their lives.
The YWCA Central Alabama wishes for our clients, our volunteers, our donors, our friends and their families many blessings during this Thanksgiving season.
