From Our Investees

(From the June 2005 Newsletter)

Kids Cafe - Boys & Girls Club of Portland
Wattles Kids Cafe fed an average of 150 kids per day for the first quarter of 2005, in addition to afternoon snacks averaging 75 kids per day. The program has been running at a profit during the past quarter. Nutritional education classes are held three times per week. An average of 65 members participate each month in the nutrition programs.

B&GC has partnered with Healthy Living By Design and Growing Gardens in a grant to fund a garden project at the Wattles Club. Growing Gardens, an organization that installs home gardens for low-income residents, will implement a Garden Club each week at the Wattles Club for the 2005-2006 school year.

Detailed plans and specifications for construction of the Kids Cafe at Blazers have been approved. Construction is under way and proceeding well with a targeted completion in mid-August. B&GC management and Board are continuing their efforts to raise funds required for expansion of the Hillsboro facility to include the third Kids Cafe. To date, B&GC has received a $400,000 grant from Washington County Community Block Grant program. An additional $1,325,000 in proposals are pending to the Murdock Trust, The Collins Foundation, The Oregon Community Foundation, The Anne & Bill Swindells Charitable Trust, and the Weyerhaeuser Foundation.

Free Clinic of SW Washington
A good deal of work was devoted to the redesign of the Free Clinic's website. The initial study has been completed covering: formats, approach to getting help, and obtaining funding to complete the project. A resource has been identified for this project and the website redesign is in process.

Volunteers have been identified to support the definition of a marketing plan for the Free Clinic. The team could use one or two more volunteers.

Metropolitan Family Service
The selection process for an IT consultant for the database project was completed successfully. The agreement outlining scope of project, timeline, and deliverables was finalized last month. MFS staff is evaluating intranet options, but a selection has not yet been made.

SVPP has a partner on each of their three strategic committees. In addition, SVPP members Valerie Ilsley and Les Soltesz are members of the MFS Ways to Work loan committee. Ways to Work provides low income parents who are unable to get loans elsewhere with low-interest loans to purchase or repair vehicles. The Committee has held two meetings to date and approved eight loans. SVPP currently has 13 volunteers at MFS.

Morrison Child and Family Services
Good progress on many elements of the "Connections for Children" Information Technology project, E-time (electronic timecards) has been deployed to all upgraded sites. The Beta version of the Intakes database project (merging databases) was successfully demonstrated. The deployment of the tier client-tracking project (Hand in Hand) is on track. Evaluation and planning for Marqui implementation is under way. Marqui will provide tools for more effective use of the Internet and Intranet, as well as provide a tool to store and access standard template information - potential use could be for grant writing and RFPs.