Hope you enjoy learning how we've been working to strengthen our community....

What's It Worth helped others to recognize not only the monetary value of collectibles and family heirlooms, but better appreciate the richness of the item's historic value as well--now that's real worth!

 M-K Company employees, endearly referred to as EmKayans, have a reputation for their contributions of time and effort to make their community a better place.  M-K was such a big part of Idaho's rich history and several EmKayans have gotten involved in helping to preserve those things that tell the story of struggles and sacrifices that made Idaho such a great place to live and work.  The Foundation was pleased to hear about their important role benefitting the Idaho Historical Museum as volunteers with the Friends of the Museum and sponsored this year's event.  

“What’s it Worth?” was more than a boring fundraiser dinner or black tie event.  It was an intimate museum experience that provided the opportunity to have personal valuables evaluated.  The event staged wifi-equiped evaluators throughout the museum in specialty lit stations.  Adjacent to the historic guns exhibit Ken Swanson evaluated guns, and military items, alongside Steven Allen our hunting and fishing expert.  A group of fantastic ladies sorted through general items outside the Sherman General Store while our experts from SICC parked themselves in front of the saloon and bar and examined collected coins.  It was as if the exhibits themselves came to life and stepped out from behind the glass to share in the day’s excitement.

Fiddlers roamed the museum and members from VPS played records as patrons toured the museum, waited on evaluations, or told tall tales over food and drink.

A table piled high with baked goods welcomed guests on Sunday.  Most patrons brought three items ranging from crystal, book, fine-art, Native-American artifacts, to clocks.

A better understanding of our past helps to build a better future.

For more information about this event and other Friends of the Idaho Historical Society Museum go to their website at: www.friendsidahohistory.com

The Idaho Foodbank and the families that received backpacks throughout the school year are extremely grateful to The Boise Legacy Constructors Foundation for providing 20 children with weekend food for an entire school year.

A working single mother says: “I don’t know what I’d do without this program. I work weekends, and I just can’t be there to prepare meals for my children.” 

Children say:

§         “All this food for me? Can I share it with my little sister?”

§         “Now my mom doesn’t have to worry about us not having enough food.”

§         “I get to eat every weekend?”

 The stories about the need for the Backpack Program go on and on. There are the children who stuff themselves Monday mornings on school breakfasts because they haven’t eaten over the weekend. Children whose mothers cry because they don’t have food for their families on Saturdays and Sundays. The child who didn’t want to go on a Friday fieldtrip because he was afraid he would miss his weekend backpack full of food.

The sad fact is, almost one of every five Idaho children is food-insecure, meaning that child is not sure where his or her next meal is coming from. That is 66,600 children.

When the upcoming school year starts, the Backpack Program will only feed 2,000 of those children across the state and 200 in the Boise School District. It will take more funding to reach more children.  

 The Backpack Program was created to make sure at-risk children were fed over weekends. With a carefully selected backpack filled with six meals and two snacks, children have the food they need when school breakfasts and lunches aren’t available. 

Not only does the backpack offer nutrition, it helps the children feel that they are contributing to the family by bringing home weekend food, and the quality of the food teaches them about the importance of healthy choices. 

This is how the program works: The Foodbank provides backpacks to children identified by their school counselors, teachers or school nurses at the beginning of the school year. The backpacks are filled with more than five pounds of nutritious food reviewed by a nutritionist. The menu includes such foods as beef stew, shelf-stable milk, juice, peanut butter, crackers and canned fruit – all of which can be eaten with or without heating and all packed in easy-open containers. The kids pick up the loaded backpacks from their counselors on Friday and return them empty on Monday. The program runs the length of the school year, which amounts to 39 weeks.

The program’s cost is primarily for food. To maintain nutritional consistency and quality it must be purchased, and the average cost is about $6.20 a week. Many families give up the backpacks once they are able to provide the meals themselves. The backpacks then go to other children who need the nourishment and will be more prepared to learn when they get to school Monday morning.

The generosity of The Boise Legacy Constructors Foundation is more than appreciated.

	BLC Foundation, Thank you for all you have done and continue to do for The Idaho Foodbank.

True Story from the BackPack Program

 Too often low-income children depend on school breakfast and lunch programs to eat during the week and then must fend for themselves during the lean weekends. The Idaho Foodbank’s BackPack Program distributes backpacks filled with food to children in need every Friday so they will have some nourishment on Saturdays and Sundays. 

 Names have been withheld to protect the child’s privacy.

He was a little guy, the number-one child on the teacher’s priority list of kids she knew needed food assistance. The teacher took him aside and explained that she had something for him, and then showed him the backpack full of food. 

 He looked as if he had won the lottery. “I get to have all this food? It’s for me? I get to eat this weekend?” he asked. 

“Yes,” she said, “but remember to bring the backpack back on Monday.”

He was crestfallen and confused. “I have to bring it all back on Monday?”

“No,” she explained. “We’re going to fill it up again and you can take it home again next Friday.”

“I get to eat every weekend?” he asked, his eyes as big as plates. 

“Yes,” she told him. “Every weekend.” 

“My mom’s gonna cry,” he said. 

The next Monday the boy was the first one back to school, backpack in hand, and asked how many days it would be until he could have more.

 “It was incredible. I never felt more like a fairy godmother delivering gold to these kids,” the teacher told us. “I loved it.”

Letter to the Foodbank

 To the Idaho foodbank and the Unitarian Church,

 I am a 6th grade student at Whittier Elementary and have been in the food backpack program since it started here in the fall. I take home a bag of food every thursday for the weekend at home. I wanted to let you know how this has helped me and my family out. 

 The things that I like in the bag is the easy mac, the cartons of juice, the canned foods, and the milk. 

It makes me feel good inside. I have more food in the house and I don’t have to worry about how much I eat. So that my family has enough to eat.

Thank you for the donations to our school and to my family for this program.

Sincerely,

Nicole Stewart

For More Information about The Idaho Foodbank and their programs, go to their website at: http://www.idahofoodbank.org/

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     A small-farm micro-enterprise... employing refugees, building leaders, and conducting on-the-job training.  As a funding partner, Boise Legacy Constructors Foundation is helping to answer a community call to action by reaching out to Boise's newest residents. In supporting Common Ground with their endeavor to offer "intensive care" training and creative employment solutions in our challenging local job market, the lives of many refugees and their families have been positively affected.

Boise Legacy Constructors Foundation Board Members were greeted by employees and trainees on a site visit to the farm

                  What is Common Ground about?

- Common Ground is about training + employment.  

- Common Ground is about growing great people, great products, and great services.

- Common Ground is about 'stirring flavorful communities, one at a time.'
 
Bhola, one of their Bhutanese staff members says, "I am a farmer."  He loves his job, and he is thankful to have a place to come, work, be at home, and learn each day of work.

Devi, their Head farmer, loves coming to work each day and leading and managing his farm team, doing the work he was trained to do back in his home country.

Bonnie, a farm share customer says, "I loved having the fresh organic produce on a weekly basis.  I appreciated having it cared for, and picked for me, so it was like having your own garden with no work, what more could you ask for??  The workers were always friendly."

Common Ground was The Momentum Group's response to the economic downturn that has greatly stressed the refugee resettlement process.  Common Ground is an experiential job-training program for the refugee community that provides industry-wide language and skills training, formal documentation and assessment for refugees not yet employed.  The Momentum Group works with community agencies to provide Common Ground workplace specific training and language instruction.

Common Ground provides training courses to refugees covering everything from customer service essentials, restaurant work, grocery, warehouse, and packing, hotel and housekeeping, and job readiness (applications, interviewing, employer relations, and job retention).  All of their training centers offer interactive and intensive English skills to increase their confidence and employability.  They conduct site visits to employers in order to reinforce the training in each appropriate setting. 

Common Ground operates a small-farm micro-enterprise located in SE Boise at 4750 S. Surprise Way where they employ refugees, build leaders, and conduct additional on-the-job training.  CG's farm operates a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, supplies local restaurants (Red Feather, Locavore, and others), and gives produce to the Idaho Foodbank, the refugee community, Life's Kitchen, and other partner organizations needing local, fresh produce. 

During 2009, Common Ground trained 50+ refugees for employment, employed 8 refugees at our small-farm site, and grew over 50,000 pounds of produce, 10,000 pounds of which was donated to the Idaho Foodbank, refugees, and others in need in the community.  Over 300 volunteers across the Treasure Valley assisted with the Common Ground program to help make it a tremendous success in changing the lives of refugees.  This year (2010), we have employed 25 refugees at the farm and will train roughly 100 refugees for work across varying industries, affecting roughly 400 - 500 refugee family members.

To find out more about The Momentum Group and Common Ground, use this link to navigate to their website:  www.themomentumgroup.org

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Over the years as we fulfill our mission statement, Boise Legacy Constructors Foundation has had the opportunity to reach out to a multitude of families in crisis and tremendous need—families who might otherwise know much greater sadness and more difficult struggles without the help the Foundation provides them to obtain the most basic needs like food, clothing and shelter. 

We have tremendous appreciation for the strength and courage these families display and feel very privileged indeed to have been able to be part of their path to regaining self-sufficiency. These are especially difficult times for so many folks, and we are very grateful for all our fellow non-profit providers who work along side us, partnering to help those in greatest need.  One of our beneficiary families has asked us to share their story with you and their triumph over homelessness. 

Kimberly and her five children ages 6 thru 12 are among the many wonderful families that the Foundation has become acquainted with this past year.  The family lost their income and was evicted from their rental housing forcing them to move into a homeless shelter.  Next, they lost their transportation and had to utilize the city bus system. Moving from shelter-to-shelter as their length of stay expired at each shelter, sadly, their few personal possessions diminished as well.  Kim was accepted into the CATCH Program giving them two years to rebuild their lives and livelihood.  Boise Legacy Constructors Foundation funded the deposit and some essential items necessary to secure housing and start their new life.  Kim’s daughter, Nichole, wrote the thank you letter displayed below and 11-year-old Jimmy provided the art work.  Kim writes the following letter of thanks: 

                        What have you given me by getting my family into a home? After ten months of pounding the pavement, trying to bring my family stability and feeling helpless and unable to accomplish this is a feeling of hopelessness, low self-esteem and loneliness. The entire ten months spent in a shelter with numerous people with chaos around you. Wondering if the obstacles put daily in front of you will ever end. Or the emotional stress my children suffered will stop. Telling my children that sometime soon they will have beds to sleep on instead of mats on a floor, a place to put their clothes, instead of a cubby crammed with all the other families stuff.  You have given me the power to stabilize my family with a foundation, a home that gives me the ability to build a life that will make our family proud.  There is no value on earth I could put on that feeling. The smile on my children’s faces, the ability to say to myself every day,” I’m going home” feeling that warmth is immeasurable.  This foundation you have given me restores the hope and dreams I had almost lost during our time of trial.  Life tends to pound down on you day after day but one kind deed gave me a world of wealth. Not material, just happiness, security, love and belief in the power of giving--restoring my faith in the world again. There is no way to completely thank you for everything you’ve given to me other than to say “thank you, God bless you.” Even then it feels inadequate.  The gift we’ve received after all this family has been through will never be forgotten or taken for granted.  Thank you for restoring our life…literally!    Sincerely, Kimberly

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 An important word about our grant-making decisions..... 

The Board of Directors of Boise Legacy Constructors Foundation is dedicated to making informed unbiased funding decisions. It takes dedication to improve communities and help people live more fulfilling lives. Similarly, we strive to support initiatives and programs that help to promote the foundation's ideals and validate the message in our mission statement.  We feel fortunate to be part of a very giving community where there are so many great charitable funding opportunities available that match our grant making policy. The Foundation supports the efforts of non-profit organizations that excel in meeting the specific needs of Boise/Treasure Valley by providing grants to those programs and partnerships that foster diversity, demonstrate accountability, and have a positive impact on society and the environment.

We recognize our contributions are an investment in the economic and social viability of the community and our funding decisions have lasting effect just as any other investment opportunity. In our efforts to fairly balance funding among the many opportunities that are presented to us, given our limited resources, the focus of our grant-making policy, and the extent of our current commitments, it is just not possible for us to offer our support to all the organizations that apply for funding--so, we direct our contributions to those areas where we feel the most critical needs exist and where our support will have the greatest impact.  We are proud of the many sound philanthropic investments that the foundation has made over the past 60-plus years and strive to continue to make those tough choices and share our assets to help achieve the continued health and vitality of our community in meaningful ways.  We hope you will continue to enjoy learning about a few of our most recent gifts to the community. Please visit us again soon.