Thank You, KYC Supporters!

April 13, 2020

It’s hard to believe that it has only been a few weeks since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought the stay at home order to our way of life. While so much has changed so quick­ly, there is one thing that has nev­er changed — the kind­ness and will­ing­ness to help oth­ers among our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. Ken­neth Young Cen­ter is grate­ful to be a part of such a thought­ful, com­pas­sion­ate net­work of local super­heroes that can’t be stopped by any out­side force. We are thank­ful for the time, tal­ents, and gifts that so many of you have shared in sup­port of our mission.

Thank You for Giving

KYC has worked hard to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing as many of our essen­tial ser­vices with as lit­tle dis­rup­tion as pos­si­ble to the com­mu­ni­ty. In order to do that, our staff and vol­un­teers need­ed face masks and gloves. We are extreme­ly grate­ful to all of the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who helped answer the call for these per­son­al pro­tec­tive items that enable us to pro­vide the life-chang­ing ser­vices that our clients need.

We also found that our clients, espe­cial­ly the ones who are home­bound, or who need a high lev­el of sup­port to live well in the com­mu­ni­ty, were hav­ing extreme dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing basic needs items like toi­let paper. At a time when you’re more like­ly to find emp­ty shelves at the gro­cery store than to find these cru­cial sup­plies, our com­mu­ni­ty part­ners helped answer this need, too.

Thank you to every­one who helped share these gifts with us at a time when they were so need­ed. We apol­o­gize if there is any­one we missed in this list — please con­tact Kate if we missed your name, as some items were dropped off anony­mous­ly and we’d like to include you!

We would like to for­mal­ly rec­og­nize our appre­ci­a­tion to the fol­low­ing peo­ple who helped in this effort as of April 16^th:

• Shaw­na B. — donat­ed 60 masks and a box of gloves
  
• Leslie B. and Karen W. (Prince of Peace Luther­an Church) — donat­ed 14 masks
  
• Sam D. — donat­ed 15 masks
  
• First Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Arling­ton Heights — 200 rolls of toi­let paper
  
• Susan F. — donat­ed a box of masks
  
• Sue G. and Mary L. (Our Sav­iour Unit­ed Methodist Church) — donat­ed 25 masks
  
• Anna H. and Ani­ta P. (Great Amer­i­ca Insur­ance) — donat­ed 50 masks
  
• Leah L. — donat­ed 15 masks
  
• Pat M. — donat­ed 25 masks
  
• Con­nie M. — donat­ed 100 masks
  
• Rotary Club of Schaumburg/​Hoffman Estates — donat­ed toi­let paper
  
• Sub­aru — a box of N95 masks
  
• Jea­nine V. (St. Mar­celline Church) — donat­ed a box of gloves
  
• Ang­ie W. — donat­ed 15 masks and a box of gloves
• Susan and Diane — made and donat­ed masks
• Anna and Jacob — masks and mes­sages of encour­age­ment cards for front-staff

Thank You for Deliv­er­ing Meals

Old­er adults are espe­cial­ly at risk of con­tract­ing COVID-19, and are urged to stay at home. Due to their increased risk, and the unavail­abil­i­ty of meals through com­mu­nal din­ing sites, there are now more old­er adults than ever who rely on home deliv­ered meals as their only source of nutri­tious food. KYC’s Home Deliv­ered Meals pro­gram has grown very rapid­ly dur­ing this out­break, and we are grate­ful to pro­vide this essen­tial ser­vice thanks to the incred­i­ble vol­un­teers and staff mem­bers who have stepped in to a deliv­ery role to help meet this increased demand.

To all of our reg­u­lar Meals dri­vers, and to those who have tak­en on addi­tion­al routes or start­ed deliv­er­ing for the first time dur­ing the pan­dem­ic: THANK YOU. You pro­vide well-bal­anced meals to peo­ple who would oth­er­wise go with­out, and a well­ness check to ensure that iso­lat­ed seniors can be as safe as pos­si­ble in their own homes. We can’t thank you enough for all that you do for our clients.

Thank You for Donating

These are uncer­tain finan­cial times for us all as indi­vid­u­als, and for orga­ni­za­tions as well. Thank you to every­one who has donat­ed to KYC through­out the COVID-19 out­break. Your sup­port is need­ed now, more than ever, to ensure that our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are con­nect­ed with the cru­cial resources they need, when they need them. We are grate­ful for all of the good work we’re con­tin­u­ing to do togeth­er through the gifts that you have shared.

Thank You, Com­mu­ni­ty Partners

KYC is grate­ful for our many com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships that have helped us build stronger com­mu­ni­ties togeth­er, through both good times and chal­leng­ing ones. We would like to say a spe­cial thank you to the com­mu­ni­ty part­ners who have pro­vid­ed extra sup­port in the recent weeks:

• Church Street Brew­ing Com­pa­ny — pro­vid­ed KYC with tough-to-find FDA approved hand san­i­tiz­er. They began pro­duc­ing this much-need­ed prod­uct dur­ing the pan­dem­ic to help keep local non-prof­its and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers safe as they pro­vide essen­tial services. 
• Lou Mal­nati’s — coor­di­nat­ed a Give­Back Night ear­li­er in April as a fundrais­er for KYC. Three loca­tions par­tic­i­pat­ed in this event, which helped raise over $300 for KYC.
• Lyn­fred Win­ery — select­ed KYC as their Char­i­ty of the Month for March. Even as so much has changed over the course of that month, they still sup­port­ed KYC with a gen­er­ous dona­tion of over $900!
• Ric­car­do’s Ris­torante — will be hold­ing an upcom­ing Car­ry­out for KYC fundrais­ing event on April 21^st and 22^nd. We are so grate­ful for the part­ner­ships we have with local restau­rants and for the oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to mutu­al­ly sup­port one anoth­er dur­ing such chal­leng­ing times.

Thank You, Supporters

There are many, many ways that many, many com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have come togeth­er to sup­port one anoth­er and the work that Ken­neth Young Cen­ter does through­out this pan­dem­ic. We have no doubt that we will con­tin­ue to see more of the kind­ness, gen­eros­i­ty, and thought­ful­ness in the weeks and months to come. We could­n’t be more proud to serve our com­mu­ni­ties along­side each of you.

Look­ing For a Way to Help from Home?

If you’re look­ing for a way to sup­port KYC from the com­fort of your home, check out our upcom­ing event, the 19^th annu­al Hus­tle for Health 5K Run/​Walk. This is KYC’s largest annu­al fundrais­er, and this year, we’ll need help from all of our KYC Super­heroes to reach our goal of rais­ing $100,000 to sup­port the ser­vices our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers need, now more than ever, to live their best lives. Your par­tic­i­pa­tion in this event can be 100% vir­tu­al. Check out how you and your fam­i­ly can get involved and par­tic­i­pate in this event today: Get start­ed.

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