LUM Advocacy helps with passage of bills for energy assistance and free breakfast for hungry children
For a short legislative session, we were able to help get several positive things for low income children and families accomplished this year!
Energy Assistance
Since 1981, Congress has appropriated funds to the states through the LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) to help low-income families. However, when utility bills are paid with those federal funds, Indiana takes out state sales tax. We were successful in passing legislation to remove the state sales tax from LIHEAP, freeing up at least $2.24 million additional dollars for energy assistance.
With this money, 9200 additional Hoosier families can be helped next heating season. Now more than ever, a growing number of Indiana households are struggling to pay for heat. Record high energy prices coupled with increases in the cost of gasoline, medicine and other essentials are putting these households at risk of disconnection and homelessness.
Lack of heat leads to serious health and safety issues. A study of LIHEAP recipients showed that 32% did not fill a prescription or took less than a full dose due to energy bills.
Every winter some families who cannot afford to pay their heating bills resort to heating their homes with space heaters or ovens, resulting in fires and loss of life.
Thankfully, we were able to convince legislators that ALL of the federal dollars sent to Indiana for heating assistance should be used to help low income Hoosiers be warm and safe! However, it is only a one year tax exemption, so we must return next session and make it permanent policy.
Free breakfast program
SB 111 passed! This student nutrition bill includes an amendment that will require 187 more school corporations to offer the federal free breakfast program.
School corporations with at least 15% of their student population (previously 25%) qualified for free and reduced lunch will have to offer free breakfast. It is critical that kids come to school ready to learn, and having breakfast is an important part of accomplishing that goal. This will also bring more federal dollars to Indiana. Universal free breakfast would be even better!
We are also monitoring the administration’s move to privatize Family and Social Services Administration. We want to make sure services to those who need them are not weakened or eliminated.
Campaign for Hoosier Families
You can join LUM’s Campaign for Hoosier Families and advocate for legislation that helps low-income families and children. For more information contact Patti O’Callaghan at LUM at 423-2691 or pocallaghan@lafayetteurbanministry.org
How can we stay connected
in today’s world?
by Mary Anderson, Executive Director
As I drive to work on Monday mornings, WBAA radio runs a feature called “This I Believe.” It’s a new version of a 1950’s Edward R. Morrow feature where people from all walks of life share insight into their personal beliefs. Some are spiritual, some political, others address the arts or everyday living. I enjoy listening and have gone back to the internet archives to read those I have missed.
Last Monday the writer/reader was Mark Shields, a well-known political analyst and commentator. His essay started “I believe in politics” and I admit I tuned out after that opening line. But his ending caught my full attention. He said, “We have all drunk from wells we did not dig. Each of us has been warmed by fires we did not build.”
That connection to the past and the future, that basic appreciation about where we have come from and what we are leaving for the future, is important to me.
How do you define “connection?” My children would probably define it in terms of the 24/7 ability to communicate via cell phones or e-mail; that’s how they stay connected. My husband’s immediate response would probably involve internet speed and the availability of wi-fi at an airport or hotel.
But technology is rarely the first thing that pops into my mind on any issue. When I hear “connected” I think of relationships—of being connected to family and good friends, of being connected to a church congregation and heritage, of being connected to the past by my ancestors and to the future by my children. I believe we are all blessed by God to be a blessing to other people.
In his book The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman says that digital technology has made it possible for an individual to do business with billions of other people around the world almost instantaneously. But is that really a connection? Is it any kind of relationship? My father knew the owner of the hardware store and the local pharmacy by name. My mother sent a handwritten letter to each family member every week. They had personal connections to the world around them, and I’m not so sure that we are necessarily better off today if we have exchanged personal connection for the ability to reach billions of others instantly.
At Lafayette Urban Ministry, we can’t make that connection between you and billions of others. But we can offer you a variety of ways to be personally connected to our work and the people we serve.
You may be connected to us through your congregation—46 local churches are members of LUM and support and guide our programs. Your church has a representative on our board of directors to whom you can direct questions or comments. The LUM staff is always available for speaking presentations on a variety of topics to help the community get connected to us.
It’s Annual Fund time at the Lafayette Urban Ministry. We have written a letter to most of you to give you the opportunity to make a pledge or one-time gift to the programs and work of this organization. But the Annual Fund offers more than an opportunity for you to give a financial contribution to LUM. It offers you another opportunity to be connected. Through your gifts, you are linked to the 4,000 families we will serve this year. Through your kindness, you are related to a child in our after-school program, to a guest in our shelter, to a family receiving food from the LUM/St. John’s pantry. Traditionally, the Annual Fund has garnered about 10% of our needed income for the year. It is an important effort, and many dedicated people work hard to make it a success each year.
Volunteering is the third way that you can be connected to us. Whether you stuff envelopes (our bulk mail crew) or serve meals (to our shelter guests), if you spend a morning (advocates), an afternoon (after-school volunteers), one night (shelter) or an entire week (camp) with a LUM program, if you shop (for the food pantry) or walk (Hunger Hike) or just love to do other people’s tax returns, you are connected to LUM and every person we serve.
So please, stay connected! Through your church, through your gifts and through your talents you are linked to the thousands who will walk through our doors this year. We thank you. They thank you.
God bless.
LUM’s tax assistance program helps over 500 families
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a federal tax break that provides targeted relief to low and moderate income Hoosiers and encourages self-sufficiency for these working men and women. It is a “hand up” (not a hand-out) that helps working families escape poverty.
EITC supplements wages. It is a refundable tax credit, meaning workers can get back more than they actually paid in taxes.
Lafayette Urban Ministry, in conjunction with Bison Financial Group, is in the third year of helping EITC-eligible workers file their taxes free of charge. As of mid-March, we have filed more than 475 returns for nearly $480,000 in earned income tax credits. This is real money that is making a difference for Tippecanoe County workers. One family received $4,000 in EITC, which enabled them to become debt-free and eligible for a Habitat for Humanity house! Many use their return to pay utility bills and rent and buy groceries.
Volunteers will continue working through Apr. 15—we’ll do a special Saturday event here at LUM from 10am to 3PM to help last minute filers. Please help spread the word!
Volunteers are here regularly Mondays and Wednesdays from 5-8pm and on Thursday afternoons. Appointments are still available.
By filing returns free of charge, the volunteers have saved low income tax payers nearly $100,000. Some people paid their entire return last year to have their taxes done professionally. Many others were talked into rapid refund loans, costing them hundreds of dollars. By having their taxes done here, they get all their money and can get it direct deposited to a bank account within 10 days.
This year we also continued a partnership with Lafayette Savings Bank, allowing clients who did not have a bank account to open one on the spot for direct deposit and have the account free of fees for one year. This made the return quicker, and also helped people on the road to savings.
Many thanks to the 27 volunteers from local businesses, churches, civic groups, and Purdue University for making this valuable program possible.
LUM 2006 Annual Fund Campaign underway
Each year during the months of March and April, the Lafayette Urban Ministry makes a concerted effort to thank each of our donors for their generous financial support and encourage them to continue and increase that support in the current year.
Over 3,000 individuals, churches, businesses, and civic organizations are contacted by mail. Each of LUM’s board and staff members are also asked to participate. LUM needs to raise $60,000 in gifts or pledges in order to meet our 2006 budget. Annual Fund proceeds are used to support LUM’s 26 programs of service, self-help, and social justice advocacy. These programs are important because they make up the major portion of Greater Lafayette’s social safety net. As of March 31, over 150 donors have pledged $32,500—leaving us with considerable dollars yet to raise.
It is especially crucial that this year’s Annual Fund Campaign meet its goal. Due to increased numbers of homeless individuals seeking services and the rapid expansion of our low-income tax preparation services, LUM is in critical need of new revenue.
If you have already responded to this year’s LUM Annual Fund Campaign please accept our heartfelt appreciation. If you haven’t yet responded, please consider doing so soon. Send your pledge or one-time gift in the enclosed envelope at your earliest convenience.
The following individuals serve on the 2006 LUM Annual Fund Committee and are hard at work discussing LUM’s accomplishments and challenges with our donors: Lewis Beeler, Deanna Johnson, Joan Low, Bob Martin, JoAnne Martin, Joe Micon, Carolyn McGlone, Ann McKenzie, Cathy Potter, Lorraine Rund, Mary Jo Sparrow, Bill Whalen, and Mary Beth Whalen.
Thanks for your help!
Food Pantry needs
The LUM/St. John’s Food Pantry currently has a variety of needs:
- Canned goods (no glass, please) and
staple food items (regular size, not
institutional). Donations can be
brought directly to St. John’s 6th
Street entrance on Monday, Tuesday,
Thursday and Friday from 9am–noon.
- Volunteers to staff the pantry 9am–noon on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday,
and Friday.
- Shoppers to go to Food Finders Food
Bank and select food for the pantry
(shoppers do NOT need to load or
transport the food).
If you are interested in being a Food pantry volunteer, call the LUM office at 423-2691 or e-mail pocallaghan@lafayetteurbanministry.org.
LUM Camp
LUM Camp will be held August 7-11, 2006 at Hanging
Rock Camp. Counselor applications are available from
the LUM office, on our web site, or by contacting Joe
Micon at jmicon@lafayetteurbanministry.org. Please
consider sharing your time and talents with a great
group of children for one week in August!
Grow-a-Row
Plan to grow-a-row! As you plan your summer
garden, remember the LUM/St. John’s food pantry and
grow an extra row in your garden for the poor. Fresh,
washed produce can be dropped off at the 6th Street
entrance of St. John’s Church, 6th & Ferry in
downtown Lafayette on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or
Friday mornings from 9-noon. Last year, the Lafayette
Master Gardeners donated over two TONS of fresh
produce from their demo garden.
Grasshoppers, beetles and bugs, oh my!
An academic honors group from Purdue spent an afternoon with children in LUM’s Afterschool program in February. The Purdue students showed the children all types of insects, helped them dissect a grasshopper, tasted fried mealworms, and helped them make their own craft creature. It was a fun way to learn about science and gain an appreciation for nature.
The SEED, APRIL 2006