Caring For Community
A little girl takes a jelly packet from the school cafeteria at lunch — she’s worried she won’t have anything else to eat that night. A boy asks his teacher how long someone can go without food. He’s worried about his little brother. A fourth grader wears shoes to school held together by duct tape.
These are stories the founders of Washington Kids in Transition hear nearly every day. Stories that sparked the nonprofit’s mission and Insurance Services Group’s commitment to make a difference in our community.
As an independent insurance agency, we work hard to connect with our clients and protect the people and things that matter most in their lives. That same desire to help others led us to the moms behind Washington Kids in Transition.
All it took was four of them — four moms driven by the desire to make a difference in the lives of local children — to provide local families a way to teach their children about community involvement. And businesses a way to connect with their community. And that’s when things started happening.
The moms of Washington Kids in Transition held community food drives, snack packing events, and stored boxes of donations in their own homes, because they had nowhere else to keep them. As news spread about these moms and their efforts, we knew we wanted to be involved.
More than 450 students in the Edmonds School District are considered homeless and benefit from the McKinney-Vento Act, a federal law that ensures educational stability for homeless students. These children may live in shelters, temporary housing, even cars and tents. Many of these children leave class for the day and will not have anything else to eat until they come to school the next day.
In January, we launched a community partnership with Washington Kids in Transition. We’ve worked hard to support our partners any way we can. We’ve volunteered time, packing more than 1,000 snacks bags for students. We organized a drop off site at our office so community members have a place to bring their food donations. We created a referral program — for every referral we receive from a client, we donate $10 to the organization — and we provided temporary office space for our partners to store and organize donations.
We’re a community agency and this is our community. We want to do more. And now we can. In June, we applied for the Safeco Insurance “Make More Happen” award. This national award recognizes independent insurance agencies that make more happen in their community through volunteerism – and we did it! As one of thirty-three agency finalists selected across the country, Washington Kids in Transition receives $3,000 from Safeco. But we have an opportunity to increase that donation dollar amount, and we need your HELP!
From now through August 17, you can support this Edmonds nonprofit during a national online contest. Our agency is competing against other agency finalists around the country for a chance to win a donation of up to $10,000 more for Washington Kids in Transition. Think about how many snack bags, how many emergency motel vouchers, or how many emergency food pantries could be served in our school district with that money.
To vote, please visit www.safeco.com. The top three agency-charity teams with the most votes will receive an additional donation of $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second, and $3,000 for third place for their charity.
Washington Kids in Transition intends to serve as many children and families as possible in our community. As a local business, our goal is to help make that happen. Because we believe every child deserves a chance.
