Director’s Report
July 28, 2015
Overview:
Our fiscal year has come to
an end effective June 30th. Everyone has been busy compiling
statistics for the various end-of-year reports we submit to the state. Carlar
has closed out the financial reports
Grants Update:
No news yet on
the state passing the budget. All grants have been closed out on our end just
waiting for the new contracts, which are waiting for the state budget to be
passed.
Program Update
We discussed last
year that we needed to do something different this year if the grant funds were
running late. On June 24, 2015. I contacted Employment Security Commission
Customer Service in Raleigh for guidance. The gentleman suggested either laying
off staff until the funding resumed or asking the staff if they would rather
continue to work and get paid when the funds came in. He added that if they
agreed to do the latter that we would need to draw up a letter indicating such.
I then consulted
with Valarie Denning, CPA regarding the employment tax regulations. She suggested
that the better option for the organization would be to lay off some of the
full time day staff except myself and Sunny as I had to stay on and run the
business and I needed to keep the evening, weekend & court advocate
positions on staff. I presented my findings to shelter staff and Priscilla,
Becky, and Eva agreed the layoff would be the best option for them. They are
allowed to earn around $70.00 a week and continue to collect their full time
benefit from unemployment. However, to date the only one who has come in to
work has been Eva.
We have been
inundated with clients this month as well as end of the year reports.
Volunteers have come in and helped us fill in the gaps in the absence of the
staff. We still need help though as many of our volunteers will be returning to
school in the next few weeks. We need all kinds of help from answering the
phones, greeting and helping walk-in clients, transporting clients to
appointments, assist Sunny with court accompaniment, childcare, and grocery
shopping for the shelter, or updating our face book page!
Illuminate Youth
came by this month and gave our grounds a thorough landscaping. Abigail Warner
(my niece) and her friend Naomi Miller touched up the lines in the parking lot.
I also had two guys come by and clean our gutters out at the shelter. Other
volunteers have purged client files for the year, entered all inkind donations
into the database and have been great transporting clients to their
appointments. There are always things that need to be done around here and at
the stores, so anyone looking for a community project or who just wants to
volunteer please stop by and we’ll put you to work!
In all our trials and
tribulations I want to remind everyone how truly blessed we have been over the
past 20 years. Very few nonprofits are blessed with the types of folks one
finds at U Care. Time and again I am asked how U Care gets such good board
members, volunteers and staff. All I can
say is that we are blessed. We have been given a prime opportunity to serve our
community through the services we provide at U Care. I look forward to our work in the upcoming
season and I thank everyone in advance for all your support.
Pamela Gonzalez
Executive
Director
