Big News!
One thing Pause can promise is growth! Daily we watch families reach goals, learn new things and change the trajectory of their lives. Monthly we witness our volunteers expanding their understanding of the community in which they live and the impact they have in it. And yearly, our annual data shows the advancement of the program overall. Since the inception of Pause, we have grown over 2000%. A number that doesn’t make sense for a grassroots initiative that started with one conversation in a local Panera, but one that we are grateful for.
Over the years, our program has evolved because families have shared what is important to them. Their voice matters and is part of every decision we make. One statement has been louder than all the others. Pause families want us to remain a resource because the macro Pause family matters to them.
To that end, we have spent the last 2 years working with an exploratory team to strategize a sustainable future for Pause. As a tax-exempt program under a unit of government, we found it difficult to find local funding opportunities over the years. Although our program was essentially structured as one, we didn’t qualify for many of the local grants due to not being an official 501c3.
We also experienced several seasons of hyper growth - specifically at our Parent Night Out host site, Center Pointe. This wasn’t super surprising to us. A vast majority of special needs families need rest. This location was central to our region and had the footprint and resources to accept children from a wide range of ages and abilities. Pre-Covid, while other Parent Night Out sites were seeing 15-30 children per event, the Center Pointe site was topping out at over 100. It was time for another expansion plan.
We are so excited and grateful to announce that Pause has filed to become its own 501c3 AND we have deepened our partnership with Center Pointe which will include the gift of permanent event space! We can’t wait to share more about our space soon, but until then we want to shout from the literal new rooftop what this does for our families and community!
Having permanent space means Pause will have the capacity to…
Spend more time supporting families. No more packing bins and boxes into multiple vehicles, unloading it all, setting up/tearing down and lugging it all back to the office! This leaves us with 20-25 extra hours a month to spend with families.
Offer Respite On Demand during the week for families that are struggling and need a break.
Assist Center Pointe’s children's ministry by offering Pause Unlimited - a Sunday morning ministry to support children with differing needs. Kiddos receive support and accommodations in the education setting so we want to provide that for their weekend learning too!
Offer special events like birthday party space and open play for families to connect to each other.
Last Saturday, WAS A BIG DAY! Pause moved all of our event supplies out of our storage pod and into our NEW rooms! A BIG thank you to the 20 volunteers who helped out to make moving into our new home quick and easy! You are making the paper dream a reality!
We still need YOUR help to make this environment ready for our kids by August 15th!
There will be several volunteer opportunities this summer to help us paint, build, or hang different items in our rooms! Click HERE to see what’s available!
Looking to get rid of some gently used items? Check out our donation list HERE to see if you can help us out!
Donate a Home Depot, Ikea or Amazon gift card to purchase items needed.
This permanent Pause space will provide exponential growth ahead. Every hand involved is a hand pulling a new family out of the trenches of special needs life and guiding them to rest, support, connection and fun.
This is CAN DO. This is COMMUNITY. This is YOUR SUPPORT.
