Randy Tate, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Southwest Mississippi, stressed the importance of partnerships and fundraising at the Southwest Mississippi United Givers fundraiser kickoff breakfast Tuesday.
“This is the thing a lot of the community is going to have to learn how to do,” Tate said at the event held at Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center. “We’re going to have to do some partnerships, we’re going to have to learn to do networking. A lot of the grants out there today don’t want that one agency to control everything.”
Tate also extolled the accomplishments of the city’s Boys & Girls clubs, which had 1,300 children enrolled in the past year.
“That’s not touching all of southwest Mississippi, but it is making an impact,” Tate said. “A lot of the areas we tackle are the areas that really need to be tackled — those areas with high activity of drugs, high activity of teen pregnancy.”
“Last year, even in hard economic times, we reached 110 percent of our goal, and that was really amazing,” United Givers executive director Michelle Lombas said. “Last year, our campaign was very successful. We feel feel like this is a reasonable amount ($150,000) that our community and come together and achieve.”
Tate was one of two nonprofit representatives who spoke at the breakfast.
Kaye Alexander of the ARC of Southwest Mississippi was the other.
“Every five minutes a child is born in this country with developmental disabilities,” Alexander said. “The ARC promotes community and government awareness, re-creation and family support.”
In all, the United Givers of Southwest Mississippi provides funding for 16 area nonprofits.
Money received will go to the American Red Cross; Pike County, Amite County and Walthall County 4-H clubs; ARC of Southwest Mississippi; Boys & Girls Club of Southwest Mississippi; Boy Scouts of America; the University of Southern Mississippi Children’s Center for Communication and Development; Crisis Pregnancy Center; Girl Scouts of Greater Mississippi; Guardian Sexual Assault Center; Guardian Shelter for Battered Families; McComb Interdenominational Care Association; Pike County Volunteers for Children and Youth (Healing Hearts Foundation); Salvation Army; Santa’s Helpers of Gloster; St. Andrew’s Mission; and the Southwest Mississippi Children’s Advocacy Center.
The agency has until Nov. 24 to collect its $150,000 fundraising goal.
