help_outline Skip to main content

News / Articles

Starting from Scratch

Brian Kimmes | Published on 4/1/2021

For the first time in the organizations 140+ history, The Family Partnership is proudly partnering with MAVA and Americorps to host a VISTA, and we couldn’t be happier about the partnership and about our VISTA, Cat Holl. Engaging with volunteers in a deep and meaningful way has long been a desire of the organization, but with scarcity of time and resources it has been difficult to get the program up and running. 

Enter MAVA and Cat. 

We are incredibly fortunate to have found Cat. Almost immediately we started seeing the benefits of her dedication and hard work. She went straight to work on organizing our limited and disparate volunteer programs and documents and created a systematic, sustainable way of processing volunteer donations that will set up The Family Partnership, and most importantly our clients, for future success. 

Early on with The Family Partnership, Cat meant with a variety of program staff to learn what the opportunities we should look to create to best help the families we serve. Two of those ideas were to create a resource newsletter that we can provide to families, as well as a digital content library for our preschools. The resources in the newsletter include a variety of things, such as food and clothing drives, community education opportunities, and free and low-cost events in the community. Because of Cat’s work, we have two volunteers from a local university committing at least 40 hours with us to create both the newsletter and digital content, which including singing songs and reading books. 

We are beyond thrilled of what we’ve been able to accomplish in a short time to better serve children and families who face some of the greatest disparities in Minnesota. We look forward to what we will accomplish in the future because of the work Cat has done and the partnership with MAVA.