Hello Friend of For the Need,

Welcome back to FTN’s monthly email blast. We are glad you are here. Read below for a hopeful story on Mario, who has been in our Bow & Arrow Mentorship Program since near its inception! And keep reading for an update on our expansion project and Paddle to Empower Pickleball tournament!

Mario’s Ongoing Story 🎆

When a child is born into homelessness, they are already starting the race of life from behind. Unstable living conditions drive a child’s focus away from thinking about the future because they are forced to react to the present.

That is why we at For the Need have been deeply invested in Mario and his path forward. You may remember him as the Arrow who turned 18 and attended our Volunteer Training Day back in January. You might even remember him from when Bree from WM met with him and took time out of her busy schedule to build a resume with Mario from scratch. The only experience he had was volunteering with For the Need! 

Bree, with her background in hiring and with some creativity, was able to help him craft a resume and connect him to a recruiter at WM to see if he can be interviewed. He recently was able to take the skills he learned with Bree and at For the Need to his first ever job interview at Universal Waste Systems, our latest new partner organization!

We await in eager anticipation of what Mario’s future holds, and we invite you to follow along by staying subscribed as we watch him chart his path forward with For the Need, WM, and UWS by his side.

Believe in Our Expansion 🏠

Paddle to Empower 🏓

We are excited to be growing and expanding, so that, God-willing, we will have double the capacity to serve and transform lives in 2025. Many of the families we serve already live in LA, so having events closer to them makes a lot of sense and will long-term decrease our costs per attendee. However, initially, our costs will increase to meet the demand for start-up costs, insurance, supplies, volunteer training day fees, event costs, and more.

That is why our goal is to raise $100,000 by the end of October. We know this goal is big, but we know our hearts are bigger. Thanks to a few key partnerships, we are off to a great start. But did you know that in 2023, individual donors in America gave to nonprofits an impressive 15 times more than corporations (according to Giving USA)? The overwhelming generosity of individuals nationally highlights the crucial role of personal donations in supporting charitable causes like ours.

Individual contributions form the backbone of philanthropic efforts in the U.S. Will you join them? There’s no better time than now to make a difference!

• Sign up to play in Paddle to Empower
• Sponsor Paddle to Empower Tournament
• Donate any amount toward our campaign
• Donate a raffle item for Paddle to Empower
• Share this email with a friend

Moolahlah Dollars & Dreams 💸

At For the Need, we believe in teaching people to fish, rather than merely giving them fish. That is why we are partnering up with Premier America Credit Union to bring financial education to our families in a fun and understandable way on October 12th.

Additionally, with the help of WM, UWS, and our incredible volunteers, for our kids ages 14+, we will also be guiding them through how to apply for jobs with a primary focus on crushing their first interviews. We will even include mock interviews, so they are ready to go when the time comes! We hope to inspire confidence and a “you-can-do-it” attitude in the next generation, so they can grow up to provide for themselves and their families.

You can sign up to receive notifications about upcoming volunteer opportunities here: Volunteer Opportunities

Thank you,
Allie Spaccarelli

P.S. Please consider becoming a monthly donor. Every donation makes a difference. For example, $5 per month could fund all our name badge supplies!