Through our food pantry we met Mike, a young man with a young family who owned his own cleaning business but was struggling to keep his family fed. We immediately recognized that Mike was a hard worker, but he just needed a little help. Mike began to volunteer at our food pantry and became a regular around the church. When Daily Bread told us about a class called Faith and Finance we jumped at the opportunity to offer this class to our church and Mike and his wife were the first to sign up. Today, a graduate of Faith and Finance Mike has learned how to better budget, he has begun paying down his debt and his business is beginning to take off. We are so grateful for our relationship with Daily Bread and how they help us move beyond just passing out food and truly impact the lives of people like Mike and his family.

Our church offers a class through our relationship with Daily Bread called Raising Highly Capable Kids. At our last graduation Jerry, a student attended the class with his ex-wife and he shared that he learned that for so long in their marriage he was trying to raise the kids the way he was raised and his wife was trying to raise them the way she was raised and they never learned to communicate and find a common ground. Through this new understanding he said they are talking more and have even begun to share about the dreams they have for their children. While we don’t know if this couple will ever re-unite we do know that their kids are going to be forever impacted for the better by their parents coming together around how to raise them.

We met Robin a single mom when she started coming to our food pantry for assistance last year. Robin has three beautiful children but like many single mothers in our community she was struggling to afford groceries and she lacked the support she needed in raising her kids. We invited Robin to join us for our Raising Highly Capable Kids class that was sponsored by Daily Bread. In the class Robin grew in her confidence and found the support system she so desperately needed in the other parents who attended with her. When graduation day came it was such a blessing to hear her share in her own words how much the class had impacted her life but the best part was seeing her three children and how proud they were of their mother.