#Giv­ingTues­day Also Means Giv­ing Thanks

November 13, 2017

In recog­ni­tion of Giv­ing Tues­day, KYC would like to share mes­sages from three impor­tant people

Loret­ta, a KYC Client

My name is Loret­ta and I am a very grate­ful client of the Ken­neth Young Center.

I came across a quote in a doctor’s newslet­ter recent­ly, which star­tled me. It read, ​“when it becomes more dif­fi­cult to suf­fer than to change… you will change.” ‑Robert Anthony

When I came to the Ken­neth Young Cen­ter, my depres­sion was unbear­able. I no longer want­ed to strug­gle with life because I couldn’t see the point of it all.

I had gone oth­er places for help and tak­en pre­scrip­tions but had not found real relief, and cer­tain­ly not last­ing or long-term relief. I had not found a sit­u­a­tion pre­vi­ous­ly that was able to put ALL of the many pieces of the puz­zle out on the table so we could see them clearly.

So I arrived at the Cen­ter one breath away from hope­less, with the ques­tion on my lips ​“What could pos­si­bly be worth endur­ing this kind of soul pain for?”

In my time spent at the Cen­ter, I have been immense­ly blessed to work with many coun­selors and dif­fer­ent pro­grams. I have my indi­vid­ual coun­selor (Tina) to thank for sav­ing my life. She helped me breathe in hope and look beyond the chok­ing black cloud of depression. 

All through this recent jour­ney I have been astound­ed at the quan­ti­ty and cal­iber of peo­ple will­ing and eager to help me! They have helped me learn to live with my men­tal ill­ness and giv­en me the tools I need to live in recovery. 

With the help of the voca­tion­al ser­vices, I am again work­ing. But even more impor­tant­ly, the whole of the team has helped me to believe that I do have gifts and tal­ents that can con­tribute to this world. 

Christ is still work­ing in my life and He has blessed me with the Ken­neth Young Cen­ter and every indi­vid­ual there who has assist­ed me on this, what I now know is, a life­long journey. 

I am incred­i­bly grate­ful and thank­ful to all of you who sup­port this won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tion and for help­ing peo­ple like me!

Kyle Ret­tberg, KYC’s Board of Directors

As a proud mem­ber of Ken­neth Young Center’s Board of Direc­tors, I want to thank all of you for your sup­port of our orga­ni­za­tion. Ken­neth Young Cen­ter is our community’s safe­ty net for peo­ple across the age spec­trum, with needs span­ning from one-time refer­rals to dai­ly support.

When I grew up in the area Ken­neth Young Cen­ter serves, I didn’t ful­ly appre­ci­ate the incred­i­ble impact Ken­neth Young Center’s work has on our com­mu­ni­ty. As I’ve got­ten old­er, I’ve real­ized the impor­tant role Ken­neth Young Cen­ter plays in pro­tect­ing our community’s most vul­ner­a­ble members. 

And the need for Ken­neth Young Center’s ser­vices is acute. 

One in five adults in our coun­try – one in five – live with a men­tal illness. 

The senior pop­u­la­tion is grow­ing to his­toric lev­els as Baby Boomers age.

The need for sup­port ser­vices that help these peo­ple has nev­er been greater, and Ken­neth Young Cen­ter can­not pro­vide those ser­vices with­out your help. For many, we are the only resource for sup­port. We change lives and we save lives.

Giv­ing Tues­day is a spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty to encour­age our com­mu­ni­ty to give back to orga­ni­za­tions that sup­port the needs of the most vul­ner­a­ble through­out the year. 

Thank you for being gen­er­ous today to ensure Ken­neth Young Cen­ter can con­tin­ue to serve clients for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Lisa Hen­drick­son, a KYC Staff Member

I have been lucky to cel­e­brate my 10 year anniver­sary work­ing at KYC ear­li­er this year, and I am cur­rent­ly the super­vi­sor of the inten­sive com­mu­ni­ty sup­port pro­gram. We pro­vide the high­est lev­el of care at KYC to adults with men­tal ill­ness, both in our sup­port­ive hous­ing pro­grams and through­out the com­mu­ni­ty. This includes pro­vid­ing home-based ser­vices to indi­vid­u­als sev­er­al times per week, as well as help­ing indi­vid­u­als with men­tal health issues and oth­er dis­abil­i­ties find hous­ing and move out of long-term care facil­i­ties. I am hon­ored to par­tic­i­pate in my clients’ lives.

I have had many incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties dur­ing my time at KYC. True sto­ry: approx­i­mate­ly 1 month after start­ing as a part-time employ­ment spe­cial­ist at KYC, I attend­ed the annu­al staff appre­ci­a­tion event and saw at least 2 dozen staff receive awards for 10, 15, & 25 years of ser­vice to the agency. This cement­ed for me the feel­ings I had since start­ing at KYC in 2007: that KYC is an incred­i­ble place and I was going to stay here as long as they let me! Since then, I have expe­ri­enced incred­i­ble sup­port and encour­age­ment from the entire agency- from my peers up to the CEO. Specif­i­cal­ly, this allowed me to return to school to get my Mas­ter’s degree. With­out their flex­i­bil­i­ty and patience, I know I would not have sur­vived those 3 years, which allowed me to grad­u­ate and become a Licensed Clin­i­cal Social Work­er. I’ve had oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn and grow, and I’m now in my 4^th posi­tion at the agency. On top of all this, KYC has always encour­aged me to be myself and bring my own unique strengths and per­spec­tive to my work.

So all of this is to share how much I appre­ci­ate every sin­gle donor and vol­un­teer of KYC. A huge thank you to all of you for mak­ing this pos­si­ble for me and my clients through your ongo­ing sup­port of KYC. 

I am for­ev­er grateful.

Thank you for sup­port­ing Ken­neth Young Center!

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