2020-2021 Twice Blessed Recipients
We are grateful to be a part of Twice Blessed and to have our dollars matched for our Flat Parent Program. It is donors like you, and places like the St. Joseph’s Community Health Foundation that are willing to support programs like ours to help the Minot and surrounding communities make an impact.
What is the Flat Parent Program?
The Flat Parent program supports students across the Minot District and their family’s health and everyday life while one of their parents are deployed. The program takes the anxiety, tension, and pressures of the student’s physical and emotional well-being, so they can concentrate better in and outside of the classroom.
This project helped them balance their mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. It helps the whole family having the somewhat presents of the deployed parent still there in a big way. There is comfort in seeing a life-size version of the deployed parent in the house and putting dad/mom in their photos is a fun way that supported the student’s physical, social and emotional behaviors and health.
As the student grows, they will now still have photos with mom or dad at all the important events. When the deployed parent comes home the student is proud to show that parent all the photos the “Flat Parent” was a part of, which also takes away guilt, tension, and worry the parent had to leave their family to protect our great country.
Programs like this make a big difference in the return home of the parent. When studying the information of a deployed parent returning home, there is a lot of adjustment in daily routine, emotions, and reconnecting needed on things they missed.
We were also a recipient of funding for the Back 2 Basics Hybrid Food Pantry Program.
Meeting basic needs in the schools to improve student lives and foster positive and healthy learning within the Minot Public Schools (MPS) District. Back2Basics is a hybrid pantry program that will ensure each and every student who needs help with basic needs receives support. The Hybrid Pantry will give students basic necessities such as food, toiletry items, shoes, clothing, school supplies, and a helping hand.
The program may look different in each school due to space, school environment, and overall needs. All pantries will have nutritional snacks for students to have at school or meal items for them to take home on weekends or weekdays. Students and families are able to benefit from the program without needing to sign up or pre-register or have an income qualification.
MPS Foundation will work with the school leads to track the use of the pantry so we can best showcase their needs in the future. With COVID-19 there were many challenges with this project, but with volunteers being allowed to help this year the project will be able to support more students. When basic or critical needs such as winter weather gear, school supplies, meals, and health-related needs are not met, students struggle to learn and receive a valuable education.
This program works with the schools to identify basic unmet needs that interfere with learning, and it is our mission to bring support to the schools. Meeting these basic needs helps support a positive environment for students and families to thrive. This project will benefit all students in need. Based on the 2020-2021 school year there were at least 2,377 moderate to high-risk students. A federal program covering the 2020-2021 school year provided support to many of those students. That program is no longer in place.
Please view Minot Daily Article.
