Where Community Comes Alive

Description

We have lived in Oak Park for 10 years and like our friend David says at the beginning of our video "it feels like we have been living here all our lives". We have made friends here, and so have our children. It is great that our youngest has friends in this community that he has known since birth. When he was born we started attending Oak Park Moms and Tots which had just started and I am still involved in it today as the Director. I still connect with the families we met on our first visit to the program. Many of these families are still close by and some have moved around the world but they still send emails to see what is happening in their former community. People often ask me why Oak Park Moms and Tots which is a small grassroots, registered charity without government funding has been able to keep going – they want to know if the same model would work in other communities. I have to say that Moms & Tots continues to be successful and meet the needs of the community because it is a reflection of the gifts and talents of our neighbours and friends. So I can’t speak for other communities but I can say that we have a unique group of neighbours and friends who believe in an old- fashioned neighbourhood where people support each other, develop relationships with each other and have fun! Some of our video shows our 12th Annual Fall Fair. This year we had about 1,000 people come out, we had a great group of volunteers keep every thing organized and a ton of local businesses helped us out by providing food, entertainment and activities. We had a beautiful day to celebrate and we were able to raise over $6,000 for programming at Moms & Tots. That leaves us with a shortfall of $26,000 to take us through to the fall next year. Winning this contest would cover all our needs for the rest of this year and allow us to focus on serving families.