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We are very excited and proud to be partnering with the City of New Haven and the New Haven Public Schools to launch Boost (boostnewhaven.org).

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Rabbi Herb Brockman from Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden. As the winter months were approaching, he met with other members of the Interfaith Cooperative Ministries to discuss the homeless situation in New Haven. The coalition, consisting of 41 churches, synagogues and mosques, recruited 19 congregations to create Abraham’s Tent, where for 12 weeks they will host and provide food and a home for homeless men. To hear Herb tell the story of how this came about brought tears to my eyes. He said “we have to do this; we have to find a way to make this work”. I still get chills thinking about it and remember how his enthusiasm was contagious and heart warming.

We know more families must choose between paying for utilities, housing and food. With an adequate supply of diapers costing familes $100/month, many children remain in dirty diapers for days which can lead to abuse and disease as well as developmental problems. To that end, the United Ways of Greater New Haven, Coastal Fairfield County and Western Connecticut are partnering with The Diaper Bank to collect half a million diapers  for lower income families in our 33-town region.  Area businesses and civic leaders joined with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Congressman Jim Himes to celebrate the diaper drive and call our community to action.  You can learn more about the issues and hear their comments from the December event on our website.

There was a time, a month or so ago, when I was actually looking forward to winter. I couldn’t wait to start wearing sweaters (and buy more), decorating, shopping and cooking for the holidays and watching the snow fall while sitting comfortably curled up in my favorite chair in front of the TV. The first snowfall was so exciting. I went outside and took pictures, then quickly went back in to take my place in front of the TV under a blanket. Ahh, that was a good day. Well, here we are. Its winter alright and boy is it cold outside. It seems like everywhere I go it is all everyone talks about; “How much longer is it supposed to be like this?”, “I need to go away on vacation to someplace warm”, “It was so cold this morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed”, etc. Sounds familiar, right?

While most of you can relate to this, there is something else we need to think about. Or should I say SOMEONE else? There are hundreds of people in our community who are not as fortunate. They don’t have the luxury of curling up on their favorite chair watching the snow. This is nothing you haven’t already heard.

But, did you know that on a single night in January 2008, there were 664,414 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide?

This shouldn’t be a surprise to us; with the rising number of layoffs and increased numbers of foreclosures, our nation should be questioning just how many of our neighbors can’t make ends meet.

According to Ct Coalition to End Homelessness, in 2009 there were approximately 4,154 people who experienced homelessness in CT and 677 in New Haven alone.

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For 10 years, during the holiday season , Target has teamed up with the United Way of Greater New Haven to "Share a Tree" to families in need in the New Haven region.  Through this program, Target of North Haven and Target of Orange each donated 2 of their decorated display Christmas trees to four families in need identified by local agencies, New Haven Home Recovery and New Haven Family Alliance. Overall, Target donated about 3,400 trees to families and non-profits across the country.

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We all know that there is nothing like a good contest to energize people. Thats why I think that from a publicity perspective the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook is a smart move. Basically any Facebook user can lookup and vote for their 20 favorite nonprofits. The top100 votes will be awarded $25,000 each. The winners will also be moved to a second round of voting with a $1 million prize for the overall winner. As a United Way of Greater New Haven employee, that is enough money to make me pay attention and ponder how Greater New Haven can take advantage of this opportunity.

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When users visit the seeclickfix.com/New-Haven homepage, they will be greeted with a United Way banner asking New Haven residents to get involved in opportunities to Give, Advocate or Volunteer in Greater New Haven.

Thomas Friedman's column in the NY Times today highlights the inescapable link between high-quality education and the ability to compete economically.  I agree with his overall message -- that in order to succeed in today's economy, our youth will need not only good reading, writing, and math skills, but they that will also have to learn how to think creatively, critically, and innovatively.  However, I don't think we should assume that all of this responsibility falls on the schools.  To do so leaves out