Loving presence over time changes lives.
With your help, Presencia develops leaders who see the beauty in themselves and recognize it in others.
Through after-school programing, social enterprise projects and housing initiatives, youth thrive, grow and lead with love.
We work according the the priorities of PEOPLE, PLACES, and THINGS. In that order.
Our priority for people means we steward our resources carefully, making sure that we have enough to sustain and grow our relationships over time.
$25 provides fresh fruit and a healthy snack to one child in our program after school for a month.
$100 provides incentives, a birthday gift and a Christmas gift for one child for a year.
$500 provides a field trip experience for one of our Presencia pods (about 12 children) during the school year.
$1,000 provides one program mentor with a month’s paid hours, giving them the opportunity to lead with love in their community. Our program mentors grew up as program participants and are now in high school, college or working to provide for their own families!
$2,000 provides one months rent and utilities, so we can keep opening our door to the little ones in our community.
$5,000 provides extracurricular activities like art class, gym days, and performing arts camps for 50 children in our program for one quarter.
$10,000 provides a consistent, loving mentor and 16 hours of homework help for 50 children in our program for a month.
Healthy children become healthy leaders who contribute to healthy community!
Each Fall, I meet with our finance team and we look at Presencia’s budget. We carefully work together to calculate the numbers to reflect the realities of our work and the world around us.
We do this because the numbers on the budget tell an important story. What do we care about most? How are the seasons changing? Where are the greatest needs? How much do we need to keep running?
We need to raise $130,000 by the end of the year to keep Presencia going in 2023. This amount sustains our staff, keeps us in the neighborhoods, and grows loving presence in the lives of our students into another season.
It's also a challenging number for me to think about. From our donors to our staff to our students, many of us have experienced great loss and big struggles this year. Some of us have experienced great growth and big gains this year. With rising costs almost everywhere, we are all looking a little more closely at our finances. We live in uncertain times.
Over the fourteen years that I've been doing this work, I consistently see that generosity makes the most powerful difference in uncertain times. It takes faith to be generous though.
Faith looks like taking steps toward what we believe is possible, what we hope for, even when we cannot predict or know the end results. Faith means leaning in, and trusting that good things are coming, even in the middle of a storm. Faith means participating, walking the journey together, even when what we hope for feels impossible.
But the beauty and power is in taking that risk.
We get to celebrate the good things when they come with our community because we choose to participate, even when we we’re unsure. And that feels really good!
I want to take steps and keep walking towards what I believe is possible. I want to have faith! And I want to share that experience with you so that we can celebrate together on the other side of this uncertain season.
100% of our families finances are wrapped up in this work we believe in with all of our hearts, bodies and resources. Ian and I are the only full-time staff, supporting a team of 5 part-time staff, who love and care for 50 Presencia children. We just bought our first home. We have two children, one with special needs. We have long talks late into the night about the risks we're taking and how it might work out. And our team of staff could make more money elsewhere, but they show up too, because they believe in Presencia.
The invitation to participate in generous faith, is bigger then ever before at Presencia.
The question at hand is can we as a Presencia family and community do this?
I don’t know for sure, but I believe that it’s possible!
I look forward to celebrating with you beloved community!
From the heart,
Ruthie
Presencia is a 501(c)(3) organization governed by a wise and diverse Board of Directors and staffed by graduates from our programs.
Here is an overview of our financial stewardship in 2021:
