The Kiwanis Club of Starkville presented a check in the amount of $10,000.00 to the Oktibbeha County Excel By 5 Coalition at their July 3rd club meeting.
The funds will be used to provide several community events scheduled throughout the coming months. Our next community event, Back to School Bash and Health Fair, will be July 28th 9:00-12:00 at the Starkville Sportsplex.
The coalition also works with the Emerson Family Resource Center in sponsoring workshops and support activities for early childhood teachers, center directors, and parents of young children birth-five years old; distributing Newborn Bags to new mothers at OCH full of wonderful support information and materials, and updating and printing our Community Resource Guide to help families find those vital agencies available to them.
We hope to have good news to share with our Oktibbeha County community later this summer concerning our certification. There will be a celebration event scheduled once we reach our certification but first we have two requirements to meet and then we can schedule that celebration. This financial support from the Kiwanis Club of Starkville will help us to continue to provide community events and materials required to meet the present certification needs and then to meet the recertification requirements. We won’t stop and celebrate when we achieve our certification. We must keep working as our youngest children are depending on us to continue to provide a quality community that respects the needs of our youngest citizens and their families and provides a strong Oktibbeha County for them to live in.
We applied for the Kiwanis Major Emphasis “Young Children Priority One” funding that addresses the needs of children 0-5 years old. The work of the Oktibbeha County Excel By 5 Coalition is a good fit with the goals of the Kiwanis Club “Young Children Priority One” community project emphasis. We are appreciative that the Kiwanis Club of Starkville voted to fund this proposal. This is our second year to be funded by the Kiwanis Club of Starkville. The coalition members are thrilled that we have the opportunity to proceed with our plans thanks to the financial assistance from the Kiwanis Club of Starkville. All children birth-five years of age will be able to benefit from the plans of the coalition.